


enfleurage

by ceeainthereforthat



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Body Horror, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Edging, Gun Violence, HEA, Homophobic Language, I did promise HEA and you will get it, Listen Eliot waugh's huge dick is canonical, M/M, Oral Sex, POV Eliot Waugh, POV Quentin Coldwater, Season One Shenanigans, Suicidal Thoughts, Universe Alteration, cannibals, even if it's a long way off, he smelled like vanilla and sandalwood and MAN, i don't make the rules, margo hanson rescue squad, mind this tag, now we come to the darkness and shadows, okay look, parties at the physical kids cottage get a little wild, please see the notes, timeline 41, warning: TEMPORARY MCD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-02-07 05:57:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 71,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18614533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceeainthereforthat/pseuds/ceeainthereforthat
Summary: Quentin Coldwater, fledgling magician, loves Brakebills University. He has a psychic dorm mate, a lack of computer technology, and the alluring attentions of Eliot Waugh. But Quentin's best friend Julia Wicker was at the entrance exam, but he can't find her on campus.There's been a mistake. Julia didn't pass her exam. But she has magic, and vivid dreams are telling her how to win the right to attend Brakebills. Quentin agrees to help her prove her worthiness to attend with Quentin.Blood magic is dangerous. But Julia would never hurt him. Nothing to worry about.__Eliot Waugh, purposeful disappointment, is doing his third year at Brakebills. All he has to do is shepherd  Quentin Coldwater, a sincere young man with a heart big enough to hold the world without a cool, jaded veneer.Eliot's not falling for him. He's just - fascinated. But when old fears and insecurities flare up, he runs rather than face the truth. When Quentin's magically attacked in the safety of Brakebills University, Eliot has to discard his lies and do what he never, ever dreamed of: be open and vulnerable to his true feelings. Live up to his potential. And love someone without hiding behind a mask.





	1. Act One: One, Two, Three

1\. it's really not fair, is it?

"Sometimes the physical kids cottage gets a little wild," Eliot says, but it's so loud in here that he has to sway into Quentin's space. One hand curls around his shoulder for balance as Eliot plants the words directly into Quentin's ear. Quentin swallows; his throat closing, his adam's apple sliding. This close, he has to tilt his head back to look Eliot in the eye. This close, Quentin can smell whatever cologne it is Eliot's wearing, something that smells like the woods just after a rain mixing with the gin cocktail on Eliot's breath. And underneath all that, under the collared shirt with the complicated tie knot and the vest that polishes Eliot's look to a level beyond Quentin's worn sneakers and jeans, Quentin Coldwater can smell Eliot Waugh's skin.

It's getting to him. Eliot's been getting to him ever since Quentin realized there was someone lounging on the sign that read Brakebills University. When Eliot turned his head and looked at him, a look that took him in from head to toe and he asked, "Quentin Coldwater?" 

Well, that was pretty much it right there. Quentin couldn't say anything more complicated than "uh huh." He'd followed Eliot to the examination room, and then his test booklet went crazy and he knew he had to pass this test, right now, or there was a really good chance he'd never see Eliot again, and--

"You don't talk much," Eliot says, and his breath, sweet with gin, whispers down the side of Quentin's neck. "You don't even do that adorable anxious babbling thing."

Fuck. He could babble. Half the time he can't stop even though his talking's like a train wreck in slow motion. But Eliot steals whatever he was going to say just by standing this close, touching him--Eliot touches people, partway natural and unthinking, and partway touching like he needs the contact. Every time Eliot lays his hands on Quentin--

(brushing hair out of his face. Straightening the lay of his collar. Patting him, petting him, draping one long leg across his lap as they settle down on the couch) 

Every time, Quentin has to reset his breath. He has to wait for the vibrations to skitter along his nerves. He has to count to ten and breathe.

He's had crushes before. But nothing has felt as electric and terrifying and as euphoric as this. 

So he tilts his head back and looks up at Eliot's face. Eliot's smiling, like he knows exactly what he's doing to Quentin. Like he can see Quentin's pulse beating too hard just there, on his bared throat. Like he knows Quentin's mouth has gone dry. Eliot knows, and he likes it, likes the breathless, wide-eyed longing in every move Quentin makes. 

"What do you want me to say?" Quentin finally asks. 

"Why don't you tell me something true?" Eliot asks, and Quentin has to bite his tongue to keep a small, desperate sound from escaping.

"Eliot!" someone shouts. "We need green-eyed monsters!"

Eliot huffs, gently. "My public awaits. Stay right here. I'll be back."

He tilts his mouth up past Quentin's ear and brushes his lips over Quentin's temple. It's almost absent in its natural, unthinking affection; Quentin hardly has time to process it before Eliot turns around and saunters toward the bar, leaving him alone and trembling in the corner. 

Fuck.

Fuck.

He has it bad for Eliot Waugh. And he really, really needs some air, right now. 

Only one person notices when he slips outside to clear his head.

2\. You're Margo's Now 

Quentin needs to cool down. Get his head straight. Figure out something witty, for fuck's sake, he can't just stand there and stare. _Tell me something true._ Something true. Oh God, that was—

"Pathetic."

Quentin spins around. Margo stands on the deck in that indolent, hip-shot way she lounges around, smiling at him exactly the way she had when she looked him over and said, "he's not that cute." 

He doesn't know why she had said that, but Quentin can't deal with Margo right now. She probably saw the whole thing. "What are you doing out here?"

"I'm saving what's left of your dignity, Coldwater. Drink up, and shuffle back to the dorm. Fairy godmother's orders."

"You can't just kick me out!"

"I can if it's what's best for you." She sips her drink and shoos him away. "Shower or sock, whichever's your speed, but get that woody down and get it the fuck together. Be dressed and ready at 9 am, sharp."

"What for?"

Margo smiles at him over the rim of her glass. "I’ve decided. We're going to keep you."

"What? Keep me?"

"Yes. You have been judged, and found...to have potential. But Eliot already has a crush on you, and if I don't step in he's going to fuck this up."

"If _you_ don't step in," Quentin says. "Which one of us is drunk?"

"Me," Margo said. "You're so gone over Eliot you forgot that you were holding a really good burgundy."

Quentin looks at the glass in his hand, still holding at least two ounces. But that's not the point! He snaps his attention back to Margo, face hot. "I'm not going to leave just because you—"

Margo folds her arms and huffs. "Look. Do you want him or not?"

That … wasn't what Margo was supposed to say. Quentin had braced for, "he's way out of your league," or "you're not good enough for him." But she didn't say those things. Quentin pours the last of the wine on his tongue, apologizing to the soft burst of blackberry and the round, oaky mouthful as he guzzles it. "I want him."

"The truth! Smart. Now listen. Here's the thing with Eliot. He thinks he likes being wanted. He thinks that's what he wants. And you? Were in there adoring him. And why not," she shrugs. "He's adorable. But if you make it too easy for him he's going to forget to see _you._ "

"You're helping me."

"Yes. That's why you're Margo's now. And that means you are marching your cute little ass to the dorm. Where you will rub one out, knowing that Eliot is going to miss you, and think about you, and worry himself a little."

Quentin glances at the cottage. "Can I—"

"No. Home. And ready to go, 9 am sharp. We're going on a field trip."

"Why?"

Margo grinned. "Makeover, that's why!"

3\. taking good advice

Quentin Coldwater is not going to jerk off in the shower like some furtive teenager with a handful of conditioner and lingering shame, fuck that. He slips into his dorm room and stuffs all his clothes into a laundry hamper before he lies down under the open window and retrieves a dome-topped bottle of lube. There's a sock on the doorknob outside - magicians know that one from undergrad, right? - and so his new roommate won't just barge in. Okay. Here we go. 

Quentin pours shiny, clear lube on his fingers. His half-hard cock is already filling out, and his toes curl just a little as the cold, slippery fluid touches warm skin. Okay. Relax. Quentin closes his eyes and Eliot's right there.

Fuck. He spreads his legs a little and curls his hand around his dick. Eliot's right there, standing real close and smiling at him and waiting for Quentin to say something true. The question had put him in an ecstatic little panic--whatever he said had to be good, had to stretch the game out a little longer, and Quentin in his mind, the Quentin who doesn't screw things up looks Eliot right in the eye and says, "I love being right here."

Quentin digs his teeth into his lower lip and strokes. Not too fast, not yet. _I love being right here._ It's true. It means everything. It means Brakebills, the whole fantastic, beyond his wildest dreams can't believe this is really happening wonder of Brakebills. It means the magic he can feel tickling just out of reach. It means catching only the slightest corner of a breeze this far away from the windows in a room too loud for your voice to carry more than an inch before Maroon 5 drowns it out. It means standing right here, inches away from Eliot and wanting him so bad he can almost taste gin on his lips.

"Right here, huh?" Eliot's hand comes up and he drinks a little more of his gin and rosewater lemonade, and Quentin knows Eliot's buying a minute, gathering up nerve like grains of sand to say, "Can you think of somewhere else you'd love to be?"

Fuck yes. Yes he can. Faster now, squeezing a little harder, adding that twist over the glans that presses a groan out of his throat and flashes on being head down and ass up and--fuck, fuck _yes_ but not yet, not yet, hold onto it, hold on--

In his mind palace, Mind-Quentin, smooth as fuck never gets it wrong Quentin smiles, and Eliot smiles too, anticipating the answer that will have them waltzing out of the common room and up to Eliot's bed. Quentin watches the dark center of Eliot's eyes go wide as Quentin rises up on his toes and slips one hand to the back of Eliot's neck to pull him down a little—

And they're kissing, Quentin's kissing Eliot and he tastes sugar-sweet, lemon tart, gin herbal. Eliot's kissing Quentin, his hand curled along the side of Quentin's jaw and nothing matters, especially not the drunken physical kids cheering them on. Quentin puts his heels back on the floor and Eliot follows. Quentin tilts his head and sinks into the feeling of Eliot's mouth on his, at his fingertips trailing along the buttoned-up collar of Eliot's shirt.

Quentin's toes point down hard. His thighs go stiff. His abs are a washboard and he's--yeah, right now, his hand pumping faster faster do it oh yeah fuck—

He can't help the noises he makes. He's right under a wide open window but he can't stop the sounds as he comes hard just from thinking about kissing Eliot, it's so fucking good and he is so gone on this dude it's silly but now he's floating on brain-drugs, all stretched out and fuzzy.

Mind palace Eliot sighs as Quentin pulls away, his lips parted and rosy and Quentin did that, Quentin put that half-lost look in Eliot's desire-dark eyes. Quentin, dream Quentin, always knows what to say Quentin reaches up to adjust Eliot's collar points.

"Right here's been really, really good to me," he says. "Good night, Eliot."

Quentin can feel Eliot staring after him as he crosses the floorboards and slips out of the cottage. Can feel him wondering how Quentin turned the tables and matched him at his game. 

Oh shit. Quentin understands what Margo meant now. It's a game. It's a chase. Drawing it out, stretching the tension, lighting a slow, smouldering fire--that's the fun part. 

Okay. Quentin will play that game. It's on.


	2. four, five, six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shopping, perfume, and wine.

4\. First thing in the morning

 

"You think really fucking loud," his new roommate says.

Quentin opens his eyes to a bright September morning and squints at the guy perched on his footboard—good looking. Nice eyes. Sexy eyes, really. But scowly and plainly annoyed by him because he...oh, God.

Quentin sits up, running his hands through his hair. "Sorry."

"All the girls tell me that about my eyes." He shrugs like it's no big deal to him, but goes right back to subject A. "You didn't even need that stupid sock on the doorknob. You might as well have been narrating the whole damn thing. Out loud. On the quad."

Quentin flushes, then. "I'll, ah, see what I can do about blocking my thoughts." There. That's totally fair. He needs to talk to—what the hell is he going to say? _'I need help, my sexual fantasies about Eliot Waugh are apparently really noisy?'_

"You don't need to get into the gory details," his roommate says, as if Quentin had been muttering aloud to himself. "Talk to Pearl Sunderland. Tell her you're rooming with Penny Adiyodi, and you leak. You don't have to tell her about getting so far into a kissing scene you—"

"—I remember," Quentin says, holding up one hand. "I was there."

"You _were_ there. Damn. If you don't score with that guy I'm gonna buy the ice cream myself. Now put your pants on and move your ass, because you're late."

"I'm what?" Quentin peers at the clock on the nightstand next to his narrow bed. "Shit. It's 9 am. I'm—"

"Late." Margo strides right into Quentin's room and heads for a closet. "This isn't yours."

"You're right," Penny says. "Dungeons and Dragons over there has the closet on the left."

This is going too far already. "I can pick my clothes," Quentin says, gathering the blankets around himself. "Just give me a—"

"No. You can't." Margo discards a mustard-colored sweater on the floor. "This doesn't spark joy. Or this. Or this. God, these jeans. We need to fix you, Quentin. This is going to take more than one trip."

No, no. This is going way too far. Margo flings all of his ThinkGeek t-shirts on the floor, nearly tosses a black t-shirt with the Bicycle Ace of Spades on the front, but at the last second votes it back on the island. "This one's fine. A casual touch."

Quentin stretches off the bed to snatch up his _talk nerdy to me_ t-shirt and huddle around it protectively. "I don't want to be fixed."

Margo spins around, a button-down in her hands. "Get a grip on your tits, Coldwater. Do I look like some hack on _What Not to Wear_ to you?"

"No."

Margo nods. "I am a genius. Say it."

Quentin looks at Penny. Penny shrugs, gesturing at him encouragingly.

Okay. Humor her. "You are a genius."

Margo drops the button-down and considers his bookbag. "This bag is almost—no, you can keep it. It's got character from being worn in. Oh what's this? Hm. Brooks Brothers. It's the right idea. It can stay."

More than half his clothes are on the floor. What remains in his closet is all the stuff he saves for "best," and Margo flings a pair of jeans straight at his face. Quentin holds them up. These are the ones he secretly likes but never wears because Julia would always make a fuss—

Where was Julia? She'd been at the test, but—maybe she was busy with whomever she'd been assigned to. They'll catch up on Monday or something.

Margo picks a navy gingham shirt and a gray cable-knit sweater. "That's acceptable. Don't tuck the tails in. Oh good. Desert boots. You have potential, Quentin. It's just a matter of making it blossom."

He expects Margo to fling the blazer at him but she picks out a zip up hoodie instead. "Dress. We're late. Friedman's is going to be a zoo."

 

5: breakfast, soho, and a box of perfume

 

Margo doesn't even look at him through breakfast. She sips sparkling water and eats a staggering pile of bacon while she scrolls through lookbook after lookbook. Quentin eyes the asparagus spears on her plate, carmelized from roasting and bathed in Hollandaise sauce, and tries to put his attention back on his blueberry pancakes. But it's no use. He stretches his hand across the table, halfway to sneaking one of those perfect looking—

Margo slaps his knuckles, quick as a snake. "No."

"I just want one."

"Drink your pineapple juice and get the fuck off my asparagus. You ordered already."

Quentin waves at her plate. "I didn't know you could get all that."

"You can't," Margo said. "It's all ala carte. Six slices of bacon, roasted asparagus spears in hollandaise, and smoked salmon scramble on an avocado never appeared on anybody's menu. Eat your carbs. We're going to be walking all over town."

Margo pays with a silver credit card and she's off, striding along the west side like she'd been here all her life. Quentin follows her down into Soho, waiting for her to walk into any one of the boutiques that slouches insouciantly along the streets. She ignores them, rounding a corner onto a street that still has the original cobblestones and heads for a thrift store.

"What are we doing here?"

"If you suddenly show up with brand new clothes that still smell like they were steamed with bergamot, Eliot's going to know you changed. For him. Uh-uh. That's not the plan."

Margot picks up a pair of black boots and inspects them. "Shoe size?"

"Ten." 

"We have a bingo. Try these on. Tell me if they feel weird on your feet, like strangely angled or something."

Quentin sits on a bench and slips his feet into the boots. They're supple, plain leather over the vamp but he can see himself in the mirror-shiny toes. He settles his jeans over the tops--then bends down to fold the cuffs a little shorter.

He looks in the mirror. They shouldn't make that much of a difference, but they do--the contrast between his battered brown desert boots and these shiny, streamlined treasures is palpable. He thought Margo was going to shove him into the latest whatever and make him feel like a fool. But these boots are like exposing a piece of himself. They're him. 

Margo comes back with a ¾ length peacoat. "I took a guess. 40?"

Quentin's still looking at himself in the mirror. Margo helps him into the peacoat, and he can't stop touching the buttery soft wool on the sleeves. But wool is scratchy, isn't it? What sorcery was this?

"Cashmere, merino, and silk," Margo says. "Very touchable. What's your opinion on ties?"

Quentin shrugs. "I have a few."

Margo considers the choices. "This pink one is more Eliot anyway. I think you need something a little more neutral."

"With a vest?"

"Waistcoats are Eliot's thing," Margo says. "I'm not turning you into an Eliot clone. I'm turning you into _you._ A better-tailored, sensual to the touch version of you. So. The boots?"

Quentin glances at them again. "Definitely the boots."

They take the coat, too, and Margo drags him into shop after shop, finding treasures so perfect Quentin wonders if she's using some kind of spell. They're laden with bags when Margo leads him into one of the boutiques this time, a hushed, glossy white space with a huge, dramatic flower arrangement made of greenery. Perfectly aligned bottles of fluid ranging from the pale straw hue of a Reisling to the deep, warm tawny amber of a Soave rest on glass shelves, but those little bottles aren't wine.

"Perfume?" he guesses.

"This is the heart of your makeover," Margo says, her voice reverent. "This is your secret weapon."

"Eliot has a favorite perfume?"

"Eliot has a favorite perfume on _you_ ," Margo says. "The fun lies in discovering which one it will be."

She looks at the attendant, who walks forward and tilts her head. Margo says, "We're looking for a coffret for him, but he doesn't know who he is yet."

The attendant nods once. "We have an introductory collection. Perfect for experimenting."

Margo nods, and that silver credit card comes out again. The attendant returns with a glossy red bag lined in black; inside, a box nesting in layers of crimson and black tissue.

Margo leads him out again, consulting a watch. "We're going to make it in time for your consultation."

Quentin rushes to catch up. "Consultation?"

 

6\. Back in Brakebills

 

"Margo, you're a genius." 

His drawers and closet hold a set of clothing Margo calls a capsule wardrobe. Everything in it matches with everything else--no sartorial blunders, no clashing colors. His hair swings as he picks up the mustard sweater, folds it, and tucks it into a donation bag.

"I know," Margo says. "Here's your skincare products. Pick a bottle of perfume. Only use one spray. Wrists and throat. Then meet me at the cottage. Say I invited you for drinks, if anyone asks."

Margo ruffles his hair and leaves. The freshly cut ends slide along his jawline like silk. He reaches up to touch his face, and it's so smooth it's unreal. He lines up all the bottles and jars on his half of the vanity counter and startles at his reflection in the mirror.

It's still him. Still Quentin Coldwater. But his freshly trimmed hair shines in the light, showing off the hand-painted strands of highlights and lowlights colored by an artist. His face glows from the hour of focused attention that went into cleansers and masks and the most terrifying straight razor shave--but now he's smooth and glowy and moisturized.

All he needs now is to smell good. 

The box from the perfumers contain seven small vials, each of them promising something different from the next-- _Monsieur,_ this one's called. And _Bigarade Concentree, Geranium pour Monsieur_ \--geranium? Okay. _French Lover_ \--huh. He uncaps that one and sniffs at the spritzer cap. Oh, nice. Woody, spicy, a whiff of juniper. He sprays his wrists, presses them against his throat, and brushes his teeth while he waits for the cologne to settle down and blend with his skin. 

He drops his old clothes in a donation bin at the dorm's ground floor and heads outside. The wind plays in his hair as he crosses the campus to the physical kid's cottage. Margo sips at a cocktail; Eliot's grilling up some kind of feast including a small plate of asparagus wrapped in bacon. Eliot's back is turned as he talks to Margo; he pinches the stem of a frosty cold martini glass with a slice of cucumber floating on top. 

There's a decanter on the table, the broad bottom puddled with wine just a little darker than a rose petal, but with a golden quality where the liquid creeps up the side of the glass. Quentin slides one hand through his hair and picks up the bottle. He stares at the label, hardly aware that Eliot's stopped talking. He reads the label twice, just to make sure, covering his mouth with one hand.

"Where did you get this?"

He turns, finally, the neck of the bottle in his grasp and stares at Eliot, who's looking at him too, his mouth open as he looks and looks. "Your hair."

"I got it cut," Quentin said. "Where did you get this wine?"

"You had it colored," Eliot said. "You look...different. Good."

"It's a Volnay," Quentin says. "It's Premier Cru from—" breathe, he has to breathe. "It's a 2009. It's--you opened this to eat with hamburgers?"

"I opened it for you to enjoy," Eliot said. "Does this mean you're not hungry?"

"I'm hungry," Quentin said. "But—"

"Quentin. Drink the wine," Eliot said. "It was sitting in a clump of ten more just like it."

Drink the wine, Eliot says. Drink the ridiculously expensive wine. His hands tremble so much the empty bottle rattles as he sets it down. "Eliot."

"Do I have to pour it for you?" Eliot asks. "You look like you need something to steady your nerves."

He moves away from the grill and does just as he threatens, tilting the decanter so the precious liquid pours into the fishbowl shaped glass, stopping the flow right at the point where the curved sides narrow toward the lip. He moves in closer, the wine already wafting an irresistible perfume.

"Drink it," Eliot says. "It can't go back in the bottle, can it?"

Quentin lifts the glass and lets it hover just in front of his nose. It's like perfume, a forward, complex fragrance that carries the terroir of the land the grapes bloomed and ripened in. 2009--a near perfect year for French wine, and this one a sterling example of a tiny village in his favorite region. 

Eliot watches him breathing in the bouquet, waiting for him to lift the glass to his lips and drink. The smooth glass tilts, and Quentin's tasting the first notes of plum in the second before—

Oh. Oh. Quentin holds the wine in his mouth and closes his eyes as sunlight caresses his face. The wine unfurls into round, earthy tannins, soft dusty violets, the power and delicacy of grapevines that were old before he was born. He opens his eyes and Eliot's studying him, a tiny, secret smile as he reaches out and caresses Quentin's cheek.

"Thank you," he says. "That was exquisite."

Quentin swallows his wine to a rolling, prismatic finish. "You knew. You knew exactly what this bottle was worth."

"Every cent," Eliot says. "I wanted to watch you enjoy it."

"Enjoy it?" Quentin asks. "It's--sublime. I've never had anything like it."

"If you're like that with all your first times, Quentin Coldwater, I'm going to find a new one for you every week."

"Find them for me, and I'll give them to you."

Eliot's so close now, and his gaze drops to Quentin's mouth, and Quentin's swaying closer before he even realizes what he's doing--but he catches himself. Smiles. And leans back, putting the round bowl of his wineglass between them.

"Thank you. I hope you're ready to try some of this, because if I don't share it I'm going to get very drunk."

The corner of Eliot's mouth quirks up. "That could be two of us."

He takes the glass from Quentin's hand and turns it, putting his mouth on the lip where Quentin's rested. He tips the glass back and drinks, meditating on the first taste as he holds Quentin's gaze, nodding very slowly as he swallows and smiles.

"I could really get to enjoy this," Eliot says.

"Keep that one," Quentin replies. "You might want to check the burgers."

Behind Eliot's back, Margo quietly gives him the thumbs up.


	3. seven, eight

7\. Where's Julia?

 

He remembers Julia in the morning. He lifts his head from the pillow when the shower starts in the bathroom he shares with Penny, and he rolls over to dig in his nightstand to turn his phone back on.

Zero bars. Just like every other time he's checked. Are there no cell towers in Brakebills? Is this some magic and technology don't mix thing? He scans his memories of campus, of students scattered around on lawns and in common rooms and reading in the library and—

No computers. No phones. He's in the 20th century or something.

Weird.

The shower shuts off, and the bathroom door opens to a billow of steam. Penny's dripping, towel draped elegantly over his loins, a toothbrush stuck in his mouth. "No computers at all, man. Everything's on paper. Everything. The typewriters are electric, though. There are pay phones all over campus, but you don't actually have to pay to use them. Gimme two minutes and I'll be out."

"I still think too loud."

Penny smirks. "Yeah, you do. Also. My nightstand. The old iPod. Take it."

"What's on the iPod?"

"Better music than Taylor Swift," Penny says, and swings the door shut. 

[Whatever this music is, Quentin likes it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upEX2JMp3c0) He listens to Penny's iPod on his way out of the dorms and into the main building of the University, following his paper map to the classroom indicated on his paper schedule. He's not the first to arrive but there are still seats in the front. He takes one, sets his bag on the one on the left, and pages through his new notebook trying to decide if he should divide it by subject or just index the pages. He'll ask Julia when she gets here.

But she doesn't come. He twists in his seat when the door opens, but it's some guy with a mop of dark hair flopping into his eyes, or it's a girl with a striking, aquiline nose and queer-short hair, or a black guy in short sleeves, a pawful of silver rings, and a bowtie. Not Julia. There are only two empty desks left—one way in the corner, and the one on his left, the one he saved for— 

The door opens again. Finally.

A blonde woman walks in the classroom. Stick straight hair, glasses, schoolbooks crushed to her chest. She walks down the center aisle, her head down, but she's headed straight for the desk next to Quentin.

"Sorry. I'm saving this seat for—"

Her books thump to the desktop. She slips her hands behind her to hold the back of her skirt to her thighs as she sits. 

"I'm saving this seat for—"

She glances at him, and then at the clock, its second hand slowly rising to the zenith. The moment the clock strikes the hour, the door opens a third time.

Quentin points at the door. "Her. I'm holding this seat for—"

Dean Fogg enters the classroom. He locks the door behind him. 

Julia's late. Dean Fogg doesn't allow late students to attend his lectures. He walks to the front of the class, scanning over the students waiting in silence.

"Good. We're all here."

They're not. They can't be. "Julia isn't—"

"You may address me as Dean," Dean Fogg begins. "Get used to this classroom. You'll be inside it a lot this year. Lectures for all first years are conducted in this classroom. Once you've determined your discipline, you will attend specialized classes in different parts of the school."

The blonde in Julia's seat raises her hand. "When will we assessed for our disciplines?"

"Assessments will begin this week. You have each been assigned specific appointments." He nods, and envelopes fly off the desk in the front of the classroom to land on student's desks. Every envelope finds a student.

There are none left over.

This can't be right. Julia was at the test. She should be here. Why isn't she here?

"There's nothing more to say," Dean Fogg says. "Class is dismissed."

Everyone makes for the door. Quentin fights his way upstream, clutching his appointment envelope. "Dean Fogg."

The Dean cocks his head. "Quentin Coldwater."

"Yes. Um. I wanted to ask you a question."

"I am pleased to note that you did not indicate your desires in the form of a question. As such, you are free to ask it."

"My friend took the entrance exam on Friday too. With the rest of us. I don't know how she got here. I had this manuscript for a book called _Fillory and Further,_ and I lost a, I lost a page, and I followed it and…"

Quentin finally winds down once Dean Fogg steps toward the classroom door. "Name."

"Julia," Quentin says. "Julia Wicker. She's about—"

"I know who you mean," Fogg says, moving through a richly-paneled hallway. "She failed the written exam and was returned to her home in New York."

"She should have passed, though," Quentin tries to fall into step beside the Dean but he can't quite catch up. "She should be here. I barely passed that test. If it hadn't been for that thing with the cards—"

"She failed the written exam and was returned to her home in New York," Dean Fogg repeats. "Her memory of her time in Brakebills has been erased and replaced with a reasonable explanation for the gap. If you speak to her of this, you will regret having brought it up."

"But if you could just—test her again, the way you tested me—"

"The subject is closed. Good afternoon, Mr. Coldwater."

Quentin stops in his tracks. This couldn't be. He couldn't be here, he couldn't be a magician and Julia's just…not. It isn't right. It doesn't feel right, that he's here and she's not.

They were—they were going to go to Yale together. What must she think? How does the memory replacement spell erase that fact? What does she believe? How does she explain them apart?

Quentin's throat hurts. Julia's supposed to be here.

"Hey."

Quentin can't see Eliot like this—not when his throat is raw and his eyes burn with tears. Mind-Quentin would never stand in a hallway on the edge of crying his eyes out. He swipes at his eyes and sniffs down tears.

"Hey," Eliot says again, softer, his hands on Quentin—his shoulders, smoothing back his hair, one gentle knuckle dragging across Quentin's wet cheek. "Are you all right?"

"I'm—" his words catch on a hitching breath; the lie gets swallowed in a sob. "She's not here, Eliot. She failed the test."

"Who?"

"Julia." It comes out as a reedy whisper. "My best friend. Since we were kids. I'm here and she's not and she doesn't know where I am and I can't tell her and—"

"Hey. Shh." Eliot pulls him close and drops a kiss on the top of his head. "It's gonna be okay."

"No it's not," Quentin says.

"Okay. It's not," Eliot concedes.

They stand like that until the hallways are empty and Eliot's shirt and waistcoat are streaked with tears, until Quentin's crying runs down. His eyes are raw and he feels as if all his feeling is wept out of him. There's still sadness, but it's far from where he's standing, crying on the guy he's trying to slide into wanting him for more than just a little fun.

But Eliot doesn't crack a joke or pull away. He strokes Quentin's hair, rocking his weight from foot to foot in a soothing, cradle rhythm.

"There." He kisses Quentin's hair again, but he doesn't let go. "There's a handkerchief in my back left pocket. You need it."

Quentin keeps his head down as he blows his nose and tries to put himself back together. "Sorry."

"No sorries. You're mourning."

Quentin blinks, and his eyeballs ache. "Julia's not dead."

"But you have to be somewhere she can't go," Eliot says. "There's always going to be this between you. A secret you can't share."

Quentin's breath hitches. "Yeah."

"Yeah," Eliot agrees, combing Quentin's hair with his fingers. "You're in here, and she's…outside. If that happened to me with Margo, I'd need a week to stop crying. I'd never get over it."

Quentin nods. "Thank you. You didn't have to—"

"Hey." Eliot slides Quentin's hair behind his ear, stroking Quentin's cheek with his thumb. "I didn't have to. You're right. You know what you need, after a cry?"

"Day drinking?"

"Exactly." Eliot curls his arm over Quentin's shoulders, walking him to the exits. "Lucky for you, I know just the place."

8\. In Vino Veritas

The bottle Eliot chooses out of the cellar isn't a rare as hell premier cru—it isn't even French. But Quentin appreciates the cherry and roses bouquet of the Sangiovese accompanied by a bowl of hot buttered popcorn, and he doesn't feel bad about guzzling it down.

Everyone's either sleeping it off or suffering through a class. He and Eliot bunch together in the corner of the big sectional in the common room, twined together at the ankles. Quentin's tucked under Eliot's wing, listening as Eliot stares into the smoked ruby depths of his glass. 

"So, yeah. I hope to never see another cornfield for as long as I live, but I can drive damn near anything with a motor."

Quentin cranes his head around to smile up at Eliot. "I can't imagine you on a tractor."

"Nothing about me should ever suggest I have ever stood within a mile of a tractor," Eliot says. "But I liked horses. It's not really horse country, but we had some."

"English or Western?"

"Both." Eliot drains his glass. "It wasn't enough, though. If there's anywhere you don't want to grow up queer, it's rural Indiana."

He stretches out his hand and the bottle floats to him. "Top up?"

Quentin holds up his glass. Eliot doesn't even bother touching the bottle, and it floats back to rest on the coffee table a few inches away from his ankle. "Where did you spend undergrad?"

"Purchase," Eliot says. 

"You were a drama kid," Quentin says with wonder.

"Drama," Eliot scoffs. "No, you're right. I didn't have enough training to make their opera program, but a little dancing, a little singing, a little acting. A lot of drinking, honestly."

He stares into the distance then, looking at a memory. "I knew about a month in that I wasn't really good enough."

Quentin curls his arm around Eliot's waist. "Eliot."

"Drama's what you do when you're a skinny little twerp in a school full of bullies. I submerged myself in it. I was the best in the school…but I wasn't really anybody at Purchase. I wasn't the best singer, the best dancer, the best actor—you know how you're supposed to escape small town America and be something?"

"You are something," Quentin says, sitting up. "You're a magician. You're the king of the physical kids. You're kind."

Eliot shakes his head, but Quentin won't let him shrug it off. "You're kind. And I'm not just saying that because you're nice to me. You sat with that redhead and told her not to cry over her boyfriend because—"

"Dick is abundant and low value," Eliot finishes.

"That's right. And she had a good time the rest of the night. Because you pepped her up. You even made her stand like Wonder Woman."

Eliot smiles. "It works, you know."

"You're not just some hedonist party animal, Eliot. You don't even know me. I'm just the depressed supernerd you were assigned to for orientation, and you're—you're here."

"I'm not just here because I'm kind, Quentin."

"You like me," Quentin says. "You like me. I do, I do card tricks. I read the same children's fantasy books over and over. I'm not special. I'm…"

"You love it here," Eliot says. "Most people are stoked to find out they're magicians, don't get me wrong, but you…you love magic."

Quentin's transfixed. "I do."

But Eliot doesn't seem to hear him. "And sometimes you just look—when you drank that wine yesterday, and you closed your eyes and the wind blew through your hair and it was so--so singular, so completely enchanting.”

Quentin's heart flutters, the beat of a sparrow's wing. "Eliot."

"I want to love the world like that, Quentin. I want to—feel like you do. With such completeness. With such wonder and awe. But if I can't, I'll just…stand in your glow."

"Put our glasses down," Quentin says. He's gazing at Eliot, looking at nothing but Eliot, but the stem tugs at his fingers and the glass floats away, landing on the table with a soft thump.

"I want to kiss you," Quentin says. "Is that okay?"

"Quentin. So formal," Eliot says. He turns in his seat, his eyes dark and shining. "I want you to kiss me. It's okay."

It's okay. Quentin reaches for Eliot, closing the distance between them. Eliot's eyes slip shut and Quentin's do too, all the better to feel the warmth of Eliot's breath on his lips the moment before their mouths touch. 

His lips are soft. Dry, the touch like creamy smooth petals, parting under Quentin's touch. His mouth tastes like tannins and he kisses like—

Quentin's kissed before. Quentin's kissed someone and smiled inside when they stare at him befuddled and wondering where the hell a nerd like him learned how to do that. But not like this. 

They don't stop kissing for longer than it takes Quentin to straddle Eliot's lap. Quentin's whole world spins a little faster, a little bit off kilter. If Eliot had kissed him like this at the party, if he had done it on the night Eliot uncorked the wine just for the pleasure of watching him taste it—

They're going too fast. Quentin doesn't care. All that matters is Eliot's gentle mouth, artfully, sensually joining them together in a way that makes Quentin feel magic thickening the air around them, joining them in a kiss that makes Quentin feel precious, centered, adored.

The front door opens. Quentin doesn't care. But brisk footsteps cross the common room floor, and Quentin's on his feet and trying very hard to keep his ear.

Eliot looks at Margo, exasperated. "We were having a moment."

"No moments. No talking. Quentin, go to your room. I need to speak with Eliot about breaking his toys."

"I'm not a toy," Quentin says.

"Exactly my point," Margo says. "You can have him when I'm done."

"We're doing exactly what we want," Quentin protests.

"We are," Eliot says. "He even asked first." 

"And I'm proud. And I'll give you back to him as soon as I'm done. I thought I still had a day or two for this," Margo sighs. "Now please let me interfere."

"She's serious, Quentin." Eliot floats Quentin's bookbag to his side. "I'll come find you as soon as I can."

"I'm not a toy," Quentin says, but they're already staring each other down, and Margo is standing with her fists on her hips in full Wonder Woman.

He glances at Eliot one last time, taking in the angry set of his jaw and the flinty gleam in his eyes, and he knows a fight brewing when he sees one. He turns around and walks out of the cottage, half fuming, half embarrassed, walking fast back to the residence hall. Sent to his room, to wait for a freshly lectured Eliot to come find him.

It burns his ears. And as he passes the oddly Brutalist Student Union, he catches sight of a payphone fixed to a pillar.

Julia. He alters course, picks up the receiver, and stares at the keypad while the open tone drones in his ear. He has to look up the actual number on his phone before he can call her. He listens to the line ring, once, twice, three times.

He's about to hang up when the line clicks on a connection. "Hello."

Julia's voice is hoarse. Tired. Slightly annoyed at the interruption. Quentin glances around, just in case someone's close enough to hear him. "Julia, it's Quentin. How are—"

"Quentin, thank god," Julia's couch springs creak as she gets up. Traffic noises sound tinny over the phone's acoustic speaker, but fade as Julia moves from the living room to shut herself in another room. "Quentin, you have to help me."

"Why? What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I'm not okay. Nothing's okay. But I need you to help me get back into Brakebills."


	4. Chapter Four - nine, ten, eleven

9\. You're my only hope

 

"What?" The low concrete ceiling bounces the sound back at him. He looks around again. "They told me you failed the test."

"I did fail the test. But you took that thing! How did any of it make sense?"

"It didn't," Quentin said. "I didn't understand half of it."

The scratch of a cigarette lighter; a pause. "Did they tell you what your grade was?"

Quentin stands up straight, his spine stiff with surprise. "No." And he hadn't asked. Why didn't he ask?

Because that thing with the cards blew his mind, that's why. But Julia's blowing smoke into the phone's mic, and Quentin can almost smell it on her breath as she speaks.

"So how do you know you actually passed a test you didn't understand and weren't told what your grade was? How do you know if you got any questions correct?"

It's cold under here. Cold, but everything around him gets louder. "You can't."

"Right! So if they give you a test you can't pass, and they don't tell you how you passed it, how can you trust their claims about the results?" Julia's voice dwindles to a nearly airless whisper.

Quentin ducks his head and whispers the answer. "You can't."

"So how do they choose who to test?"

Quentin's no fool. Julia's leading him through her argument, but it makes sense, and he sees that answer she's headed toward.

"They have to have a way to detect potential. Unless you already knew. Eliot knew early, like 14—Eliot's the student who showed me around," Quentin explains. "Did you see him? Tall, dark hair, vest?"

"No, Q. But I—"

Quentin plows on, caught up in explaining. "I didn't know I had magic. I didn't have the least idea. Dean Fogg literally scared it out of me."

"Q. I have magic," Julia says. "I can do…something. I have magic and they didn't let me in."

The blood rushes in Eliot's ears. "You have magic?"

"Yes."

"And you didn't tell me?" Quentin's voice rises; he clutches the heavy receiver in a tight squeeze. She didn't tell him? How could she, how could she sit through all his sleight of hand, all his card tricks, and never tell him--

"It only started happening after the test," Julia says. "But it's real, Q, this is really happening and they have to let me come back."

"Okay." Quentin's middle shudders. A trickle of sweat slides down his ribcage. "I'll talk to Dean Fogg, and—"

"No," Julia says. "They only let people back in Brakebills if they claim the right of presence. I have to return to Brakebills using magic. I have to get past their wards and present myself, proving that I made it in with my own power."

"How do you know that?"

Julia lets out an exasperated sigh. "It's traditional."

"Okay." Quentin's trying not to heave a sigh of relief. Julia's going to be here. Julia's coming to Brakebills. "How do you do that?"

"I need you to bring me a book." 

Fledgling hope stumbles to the edge of the nest, spreads its wings, and plummets to the earth. Quentin leans against the pillar, stretching the short cable connecting the receiver to the phone. "I can't. The books can't be removed from campus."

"Okay. Then I need you to copy down the section on Mirror Portals from _The Means of Nonlinear Travel_ by Ambonisye Okoro, because I think I see a way to—"

"How do you know this?"

Sudden silence on the line. "Not on the phone."

"Julia—"

"Copy it down. Every word. Every diagram. And then bring it to me."

Quentin's hands shake. "I can't."

"Why not?"

Quentin swipes his hand through his hair. His shoulders slump, and he stares at the concrete ceiling above his head. "Because I don't know how to leave campus. They don't teach that yet."

"You have to bring me that section of the book," Julia's voice is tight with urgency. "Figure out how to get it to me."

There is always a way. Margo knows how to leave. Eliot probably does too. "I'll ask Eliot to take me out."

"Don't bring him here," Julia says. 

"Why not? I want you to meet him. He's—he's nice."

"He can't know you're helping me. The right of presence is supposed to be claimed alone, but Fuzzbeat only had a citation for the book buried in a mountain of footnote comments in the page code--it doesn't matter. You have to help me." Julia takes a deep breath; it shudders, thick with unvoiced sobs. "I have to get back."

There's really no question. Julia is his friend. They grew up living next door to each other. She's supposed to be here. "Okay," Quentin says. "I'll go to the Library right now."

"Thank you," Julia does cry then, and Quentin clenches the phone. "Come as soon as you can."

"I will. I promise."

Julia's crying too hard to reply. 

"It's gonna be okay. You know that, right? It's gonna all work out. I can just—be here. If you need me."

"Go," Julia says, still crying. "I'll be okay. Get me that book."

She hangs up on him with a click. Quentin stares at the receiver as a wave of feeling sweeps over him. The shadows darken; the sun passes behind a cloud. 

He turns around when the sensation of being watched becomes unbearable, but there's nothing. He's alone. He's safe. 

He hangs up and changes course, doubling back to head for the Library.

 

10\. Hold hands, say yeah

 

Quentin's wrist is bitching, but he's nearly finished writing every word of the section on Mirror Portals. He doesn't understand anything he's writing down about reflections connects in the reality behind the mirror itself, and he doesn't know how Julia's going to make sense of it either. But she needs this. It will help get her back to Brakebills where she belongs. Everything will be fine when Julia's here too. 

He tucks the loose sheets in his bag and rotates his wrist, trying to soothe the ache as he heads up the stairs to his dorm. He makes it halfway up the flight and stops at the sight of Eliot dramatically conducting a symphony to the enthusiastic sex happening in his room right now.

"Is there a sock on the doorknob?" he asks.

"Oh yeah. Not like you'd need the hint," Eliot says.

"At least I'm not the only one who's loud."

Eliot tilts his head. "You scored some noisy dorm sex?"

Heat spreads across Quentin's face. "No. I--uh. Penny's a psychic and I think too loud and—"

"And Penny wants to you to fuck off," Penny hollers. "I'm busy."

Eliot purses his lips and nods. "Let's go. I'll keep him out of your hair," Eliot shouts, and he shoos Quentin back down the stairs. "I've been waiting for you. Well. Walking back and forth between the sex palace and the cottage."

"I was in the library. Taking notes. With a pen."

"With a pen. What. Like a Bic? Oh, Quentin. Come along. I have some spare pens I can lend you."

"I have pens."

"Real pens." Eliot slips one hand under the left side of his waistcoat and produces a sleek black pen. "Here. Take that one; I've got tons."

Quentin lifts the pen. "I would have figured you'd carry a fountain pen."

"I'd love to," Eliot says, lifting his left hand and waggling his ringed fingers. "Fast drying gel ink is better for sinister men. These are easier anyway. Remind me to take you down and find you a typewriter."

"Why are there no computers in Brakebills?"

"A lot of magicians disrupt electronics," Eliot says. "Not all of them, but enough that Brakebills would need an army of IT nerds constantly fixing machines. It's easier to just go manual."

"And there's no cell service for the same reason?"

Eliot turns his head to give Quentin a sharp look. "Did you use the payphones?"

Quentin's stomach does a nervous little shiver. "I called Julia."

"Did you use the ones outside the dorms?"

"No," Quentin says. "The one under the student union building."

Eliot's gaze flickers from Quentin's face to check for anyone who's close enough to hear them. "Did you talk about magic?"

Quentin tries not to stammer. "Dean Fogg told me not to speak to her about magic."

Eliot relaxes. "Brakebills is 100% cone of silence." 

"I figured."

"There's an enchantment that makes your loved ones, if you have contact with them, think you're studying in the school they expected you to attend. So even if you slip up, they hear what they expect to hear. But you can't tell anyone that you're here. Or that it's real." Eliot takes Quentin's hand, curling their fingers together. "Don't freak the muggles. Ever."

Julia's not a muggle, but he likes their fingers intertwined, even with the pressure from the big silver and moonstone ring on Eliot's right middle finger. "Right. Cone of silence."

"Speaking of silence," Eliot says, "I never heard the rest of your explanation about thinking too loud."

Quentin chuckles. "I have a vivid imagination."

Eliot nods, his eyebrows high. "Did you think about me?"

"Of course I did."

Eliot can't hide the pleased little smile on his face. "I thought about you."

It hits him in a rush. Eliot, elegant, stylish, sardonic Eliot lay in his bed and got off while thinking about him. It's like quaffing an overfull glass of Perrier-Jouët--fizzy warmth pours into his stomach, and his head is already fuzzy. "And what did you think?"

"Margo's very protective of you," Eliot says. "She likes you. She basically hauled out a shotgun and asked me about my intentions."

"She doesn't have to do that," Quentin says, but Eliot rubs his thumb along Quentin's knuckle, lifting their joined hands and pressing the back of Quentin's hand to his lips.

"I told her that I told you about Indiana," Eliot says. "I told her that I knew she dragged you to her colorist--Andre is singularly talented, but his work is distinctive. I told her that I don't know how I feel."

"Oh," Quentin says. "But how can you know? It's still too early to talk about that kind of stuff—"

"I told you I want to stand in your glow," Eliot says. "I can spin some pretty sweet lies, but that's not one of them. And if you need time, if this is new to you—"

"It's not," Quentin says. "Not all of it, anyway."

"Good." Eliot's smile catches him right in the heart. "Let's do something new, though."

 

11\. A tree and a moth

 

Okay. It's okay. It's…oh, God.

"This is your room," Quentin says.

"Best room in the house," Eliot agrees. He sinks into a squat in front of a mini-fridge built into the crawlspace and pulls out a very cold bottle of gin, some kind of dark liqueur, and he's shaking a cocktail before Quentin's really had a look at the place.

It probably is the best room in the house. Quentin watches a ceiling fan whirl overhead. The bay windows in the farthest corner make a kind of double nook, where one side holds a perfect reading chaise and the other is home to a desk, built-in bookshelves, a wooden swivel chair, and a manual Underwood typewriter. It's dim and peaceful and Quentin backs up to sit on the full-sized, pillowy bed.

Eliot's bed, with a tall headboard pushed up against a wall covered in black and red wallpaper. Eliot's bed, draped in matching paisley print bedding and flanked by night tables. 

Eliot's bed.

"What were you going to show me?" Quentin asks. 

"Something magical. You'll like it," Eliot says, and brings Quentin a round, shallow saucer filled with a violet-colored cocktail. "I don't keep wine in my room yet."

That's an offer. "This is good," Quentin says, and then sips. "It is good."

"Sip it. It'll kick like a mule."

Eliot moves to the corner and pulls a sheet away from an enormous mirror, rolling it to stand at the foot of the bed. He adjusts it so the top edge tilts forward, giving a full view of the bed, and Quentin swallows down another gulp of his drink.

"It's not for what you think," Eliot says. He stretches out on his bed and nudges Quentin with his toes. "Come back here." 

Quentin jerks in surprise, and quaffs half his cocktail. "Okay. Um. Coming."

Eliot watches him with some bemusement. "Quentin. Are you nervous?"

Quentin nods, the aviator three quarters drained, now. "Yes."

"Don't be," Eliot says. "Look. You run this. You decide how far we go and when. But I want you to have a good view."

"A good view of what?" He runs this. Meaning Eliot won't put even one toe over the line until Quentin says yes. Or says what he wants. Eliot will go at Quentin's speed.

And he wants to show Quentin something magical. 

Quentin sets his empty glass down and settles on the right hand side of the bed. Eliot smiles and sets his drink aside.

"This is a viewing spell, with a variation I think you'll like," Eliot says, and he puts his hands together, folding his fingers in patterns Quentin recognizes as casting a spell. He twists his hands so his thumb and forefingers meet in a rectangular shape, and—

The space between them shines with the same blue as the screen of a television, tuned to a dead channel. Eliot spreads the distance between his fingers, growing the blue rectangle until it's the size of a computer screen. Then he takes a deep breath and blows on it.

The screen floats away from his fingers. It sticks to the mirror, flares to white, and then clears, floating above an oak forest.

"Wow," Quentin reaches for Eliot's hand. "Where is this?"

"I can use the spell to view anything unwarded I want," Eliot said. "I've seen _Hamilton_ with this spell. But this is a little different."

"How?"

"Watch," Eliot says. "You'll see." 

The scene in the mirror swoops and flutters between the broad trunks of ancient trees—mighty oaks of the sort Quentin imagines belong in an English forest. It's beautiful. And the spell is so useful. And—

"You saw _Hamilton_ with this?"

"Shh. Watch."

Quentin watches. The scene zeroes in on a broad-trunked tree, and Quentin sees it.

"Oh my god."

The tree was hollow. 

Quentin stares as everything slips into sharp, perfect focus, as if he has on a brand new pair of glasses. A grove of oaks. A tree with a portal inside.

He knows this place.

"It's the clock barrens," Quentin says. "It's Fillory. Eliot."

Eliot squeezes his hand. "I knew you'd like it."

"It's real?" He feels like he's flying. He's so high in the air, and in the mirror, the scene moves to a tree with a clock in its trunk. Quentin's heart thunders inside him. "Fillory is real."

"I don't know how to go there, but this is the first place the spell with the extraplanar variant worked," Eliot says. "I remember you mentioned the books. Do you like it?"

A fluttering shape flies away from the tree's rough bark, turning a tumbling path through the air, looping and fluttering toward them.

A moth, its wings glowing a bright, magical blue, flies right up to the mirror glass—and breaks through, bumbling in the air over their heads before it flies out the window, its glow fading in the evening light.

A moth. A Fillorian moth. Quentin leaps off the bed and chases to the window, hoping to see the magical creature. Eliot stands just behind him, his arms looped around Quentin's chest.

"That was amazing," Eliot says. "That really happened."

"It's real," Quentin says. "A little bit of Fillory just flew through this room. Because you—" He turns around in Eliot's arms. "No one ever gave me anything so perfect in my life."

Eliot smiles at him. "Still want to watch _Hamilton?"_

Quentin laughs and throws his arms around Eliot. "Thank you. I love—I love everything about being here."

"Oh yeah?" Eliot gazes at Quentin, his eyes soft and wondering. "Here?"

"Yes."

Eliot bends down to drop a kiss on Quentin's forehead. "Here?"

"Yes." Quentin rises up and kisses what he can reach—Eliot's throat, his jaw, the cleft of his chin—until Eliot tilts his head down and cradles the back of Quentin's head in his hand and returns the same. Kisses to his chin, his jaw, down the thrumming pulse of his throat.

It feels so good. Eliot's ruining him just by kissing him, his lips floating along his sensitive throat. "Here?"

Quentin grabs at Eliot's shoulders. "Fuck, yes." 

Warm hands slide under Quentin's shirt. "Pants stay on?"

"This time," Quentin says, and lets Eliot lead him back to the bed.


	5. twelve, thirteen, fourteen

12\. Secrets and lies

 

Quentin wakes up to the smell of bacon and coffee in a bare room with blue walls and a narrow bed, alone. He lifts his head from the thin pillow to the sound of singing.

He plants his feet on an old hand-braided rug. He's in the physical kids' cottage. Not in Eliot's bed—Eliot wouldn't let him change his mind about pants. 

He wrestles into the same plain t-shirt and scottish cashmere sweater he'd discarded on the floor last night. He scuffs his heels on the thin, worn carpet scratchy under his bare feet until he hits the cool laminate tile in the kitchen.

Eliot's cooking. A double grill pan holds strips of bacon, sizzling and popping. A pan of shredded sweet potato pancakes browns in the far corner, and Eliot's running that stove like an expert, belting out _La Vie en Rose_.

_"Hold me close and hold me fast_

_The magic spell you cast_

_This is la vie en rose…"_

He sweeps Quentin into his arms and they sway together, Eliot crooning an old love song in his ear about being in a world apart, a world where roses bloom. He knows the words, but he doesn't dare sing them--Eliot's voice is beautiful enough for the two of them.

"I didn't know you liked mornings," Quentin says. He spins away and picks up a French press. He pours coffee that make his eyes open all the way, rich and complex just from the smell.

"I slept like a baby," Eliot swoops in for a brief kiss. "Your specialization session is today. Do you want to meet in Student Union and pick classes? I know everything about everybody, so you won't wind up with a nightmare professor unless you can't avoid it.”

"I want to study the under-theory of probability magic."

"Oh. You poor thing. Content's fascinating, but March is a scary genius. He's prone to lecturing on a level that leaves newbies in the dust." Eliot slides back to the stove, flipping bacon and potato pancakes.

"That's a lot of bacon."

"Bambi loves it."

"Bambi?"

"Margo. I'm making her a make-up breakfast. She really went to bat for you yesterday.” 

"I can't believe she called me a toy."

Eliot fishes boiled eggs out of a pot with a slotted spoon. "Do you know why she called you that?"

"Because you don't do commitment?"

"She did it to piss me off," Eliot said. "And it worked. Bambi's on your side, Q. And I made her a promise."

"What?"

"That I would be honest." Eliot smiled and dropped six slices of bread in a restaurant quality toaster. "If I do it right, you'll be able to tell."

He switches on a heat lamp and slips a plate of potato pancakes on it, then pats bacon dry before plating it. He pours a cup of black coffee, sets it all on a tray, and walks out of the kitchen. "Bambi," he calls. "Rise and shine."

Quentin shrugs and turns in a slow circle, taking in the kitchen. A flicker catches his eye, and the moth, still glowing a gentle blue, crawls across the kitchen window. 

"Hey buddy," Quentin says, creeping across the kitchen floor. "Do you need to go back to Fillory?"

The moth launches itself off the glass and flutters away, disappearing into the trees. Quentin smiles to himself. It's like a sign. He's going to have a good day. When Julia hears about this—

Oh fuck. Julia. He should have asked Eliot to take him to New York last night. But if catching a view of the world he loved as a child isn't an excuse to forget, nothing is. He can tell her it happened. Eliot can do the spell again. They can show her when she gets here. 

Eliot returns. "You fixed me a plate." He kisses Quentin's cheek and takes it to the table. "After we figure out what classes you need, do you want to do anything?"

It's a small favor. It's no big deal. Be natural. "Yeah. I need to go to the city. I told Julia I'd check on her."

"Mm. Sure," Eliot says around a bite of bacon. "Where does she live? I can find us some reservations."

Quentin glanced off to the left. "I do want you to meet her. But I don't know how to explain how we met, or how to tell her—"

"You don't know how to explain?"

Quentin winces. "I meant that—"

"—What's so hard about 'I met a gorgeous, romantic, amazing guy?'" Eliot sets his coffee cup on the table. "It's not hard. Do you want to keep me a secret?" 

"No!" Quentin says. "It's just, she's going to want to know why I didn't go to Yale and—"

Eliot looks away, looks at his plate, and his voice is so quiet it almost disappears. "Quentin, are you not out?"

"I plan on telling her all about you," Quentin says. "And I'm not _not_ out. She knows. My parents know. I went to prom with a guy. I just—"

"I won't let you hide me," Eliot says. "I won't be anybody's secret."

"Good. I don't want to hide you. I just need to drop in on her and apologize for fucking her up. Fifteen minutes tops, and—we'll meet you," Quentin says. "There's a bar around the corner we like. Okay? I really want you to meet Julia."

Eliot considers it. He glances at Quentin as he decides to believe him. Quentin's lying to him, he's lying, but not about that. "Eliot. You're not my secret. You're, you're my front page news. I just, I can't rub it in her face like that. Julia and I were going to attend the same school, and the alibi spell has me doing something really shitty to her, and I don't want you caught in the middle of our argument."

God, that lie's perfect. It's so smooth, so likely, so plausible. It settles the lines on Eliot's brow, and the icy set of his jaw softens as he believes every word coming out of Quentin's mouth.

Eliot reaches out and strokes Quentin's shoulder, everything forgiven, and Quentin's a fucking lying bastard. "Okay. Get your cover file. We'll go over it. Yale?"

"Harvard. Supposedly I'm getting an MBA." Quentin rolls his eyes. "I guess I changed my mind."

"That happens in cover files. Sudden changes of plan. It'll be okay. And Q," Eliot says. "I understand now. You're anticipating a fight, and bringing me might stop her from speaking her mind."

How was he going to explain this, once Julia's at Brakebills? He has to tell Eliot. Julia has to let him tell Eliot. If they tell him the truth tonight, he will understand. He can help.

"I just want everybody to be okay," Quentin says. "You especially."

Eliot's smile is gentle, warm, and Quentin doesn't deserve it. Not until Eliot knows the truth. "Don't let the eyeliner fool you. I'm pretty tough. How long until your first class?"

Quentin consults the kitchen clock. "An hour."

"Eat up," Eliot says. "You have enough time to make it to your dorm to shower and change."

 

13\. Latent worries

 

Alice Quinn sits in the seat Quentin had tried to save for Julia yesterday, and he chooses the seat to her right, settling his copy of _Amelia Popper's Practical Exercises for Young Magicians_ in the precise center of his desk.

"You're not from a magical family, then."

Quentin glances at Alice, who's tapping her pen on a copy of _Arachne's Thread: an Exploration of Freedom Vs. Determinism in the Face of Probability Divinations._ He brightens. "Are you planning on taking Professor March's class?"

"He invited me. I thought I'd skim through the texbook before I decided."

"I was thinking of taking the class," Quentin says. "But I hear the professor's a next level genius and it's hard to get him to slow down."

"Hm." Alice flipped another page. She turned her head and Quentin caught an odd blue gleam in her eyes as she squinted at the windows. "Those are too bright."

She cast something briefly described in a few flowing moves from one tut to another, and the light diffused. "If you want to take the under-theory class, we could do homework together."

"Great," Quentin says. "So you can be my next level super genius translator."

"Something like that," Alice says. "Do you know your discipline yet?"

"No," Quentin swipes his hand through his hair and shrugs. "I haven't managed to do a spell yet. On purpose, I mean."

She blinks slowly, a tiny frown creasing between her eyebrows. "But you passed the test."

"That's what the dean said."

"If you're latent, you must be very powerful. Generally they don't let latents take up space at Brakebills. If you can't cast at will by now, there's only a 4.22% chance you will ever be able to."

No one said anything about this. No one told him that there was a chance he could still fail. "Oh. So you don't want to partner with me for the under-theory class?"

"No, I still do," Alice says, shaking her pale, chenin blanc colored hair. "If you're here even though you're latent, you must be special somehow. Have you been practicing your diction exercises?"

The door opens. Penny walks in, hand in hand with a familiar looking dark-haired girl.

Alice lifts her eyebrows. "Oh, they're late."

"So's the teacher," Quentin says. He tries to catch Penny's eye but he can only see the beautiful dark haired girl walking by his side. They kiss before sitting in the only two desks left in the room.

"Lucky." Alice peruses her book. She stays quiet through the rest of the class, but when it's time to leave she waits for Quentin to gather his books.

"If you have time, we could try something simple to cast. There are a hundred minor cantrips in Popper's book, and I know them all."

"I have to find out what my discipline is," Quentin says. But how can they determine that if he can't even cast a spell? But he can do magic. His cards floated all around him. They arranged themselves into a card-castle. He'd done that. So what made sense? Telekinesis, like Eliot?

"I freaked you out," Alice says. "I opened my big mouth and I Grangered it up and now you think they're going to kick you out."

"No!—yeah. I'm worried."

"They wouldn't keep you if you weren't special." Alice reaches out to squeeze his arm and shuffle them out of the path of students moving through the hall. "Count on it. They kick latents out of here all the time. That's probably what happened to your friend."

"What?" Quentin stares.

"The friend you were saving a seat for," Alice says. "She probably has the potential, but for some reason it never manifested. Which might be a good thing."

Julia not being here was not a good thing. "How can it be good?"

"Magic comes from pain," Alice said. "Loss. Alienation. Despair. Shame. It can come from joy and love too, any strong emotion, but the positive feelings don't have the sustainability that shitty ones do, so we're all a bunch of miserable gifted kids. And I'm over-explaining."

"No," Quentin says. "No, I didn't know this. It comes from pain? You mean, I have magic because I—"

The part of himself that loathes everything, the part of himself that does its best to keep him unhappy and hurting—that's where magic comes from? And—Quentin shakes his head. "That can't be right."

"I know, it's fucked up." Alice presses her books tighter. 

"What's yours?" Quentin asks. "I'm depressed. I—nearly did something stupid just before I came here. So that's the pain, right? What's yours?"

Maybe he shouldn't ask. Maybe that's too personal. It probably is. He wants Eliot. He wants to find him, and hold him, because if Eliot's that good, if he's that gifted…

"My brother died here," Alice said. "He died here, and nobody seems to care."

Loss. "Jesus. Was it an accident?"

She looks at the toes of their boots. "No one will tell me."

"That's fucked up," Quentin says. "Do you want me to, I mean, what can I do?"

"I don't know," Alice says. "But if I think of something, I'll ask."

"Okay. Shit. I don't want to just dump you here but I've got my evaluation and—"

"Go," Alice says. "Don't be late."

She walks away before Quentin can say anything else, her head down and her shoulders curled in on herself. 

 

14\. These burning dreams

 

Quentin's glad there's no sock on the doorknob, but when he opens the door to his room, Penny and the pretty brunette he kissed have their course lists out and are marking them up with circles, strikeouts, and stars. Penny looks up as Quentin walks in, head cocked.

"I can't hear you."

Quentin pulls a garish pendant out from under the neck of his sweater. "Talisman."

"Cheating. But all right. But now I have to ask you what's going on in your life. This is Kady."

"Hi," Quentin and Kady say in unison. Kady smiles. "Seen you around home base. You and Eliot, huh?"

"Yeah. I guess. You and Penny, huh?"

"Oh yeah." Kady's smile is enough to make Quentin fumble for something else to do. He drops the talisman under his sweater and nods. 

"Do you know what you're taking?"

"My Discipline has been determined," Penny says. "To no one's surprise, I'm a psychic."

"What a twist," Quentin says. "It's good to know for sure."

"You?"

Quentin looks out the window. "Undetermined. I'm a, a nothingmancer."

"Sometimes it doesn't jump out at you," Penny says. Give it time.

"I haven't cast a spell yet," Quentin says. "I'm latent."

"You're not latent. You're probably a projective telepath. You can hang out in the Patchouli Palace with all the other hippies," Penny says. 

Quentin smiles. "Thanks."

"It'll come," Kady says. "They would have just wiped you and sent you home if you were only a latent."

It's nice. It really is. But Quentin wants to fidget, change the subject, and so he drops his bag on his bed. "I'm meeting Eliot, so I should—"

He ducks into the bathroom and looks at the little bottles, leaving the ones he's already tried. Musc Ravager sounds so aggro, but he sprays it on his wrists and throat, feeling his beard stubble. It's all right. He runs a comb through his hair, cleans his teeth, and when he walks out, Kady sits up straight, sniffing interestedly.

Quentin sniffs at his wrist on the way to the cottage. It's nice. It's sweet at first sniff, powdery with amber and warm with sandalwood, but there's something else going on underneath it, something raunchy and abandoned. 

Eliot's mixing Margo a drink when he walks into the physical kids cottage. He pours a rose pink drink and lifts an eyebrow. "Cosmo?"

"Sure." Quentin scoots around behind the bar to plant a peck on Eliot's cheek, but Eliot turns his head and stares at Quentin, nostrils flaring, and then he's crushed up in Eliot's arms while he buries his nose in Quentin's neck.

Oh. This one, then. Eliot lifts his head and murmurs in Quentin's ear. "You smell like sex. Hot, sweaty, ravishing sex. Oh, Quentin. The depths you reveal."

Margo's practically giggling. "I told you."

"Bambi, did you do this?"

"I took him to June," Margo says. "She put the selection together. We have a winner?"

"Let me have my way with you," Eliot says. "It'll be the best week of school you'll ever miss."

Fuck if it isn't tempting as hell. Eliot's practically trying to get inside him, and he's blown Quentin's mind with everything he can to to a guy from the waist up. But he already made Julia wait one day. He can't make her wait for another.

"When we come back," Quentin says. "You said you'd take me to the city."

"I did. Damn it. And then you go and unveil this. Well. Anticipation's half the game. Drink up. Next stop, Hell's Kitchen."

Quentin doesn't quite catch how Eliot casts the spell. He does it on the cottage's front door--one step, and they're on west 46th. Quentin leads the way to the wine bar and takes Eliot inside, accepting the smiles of the host as he leads Eliot with one hand on the small of his back.

"This is Eliot. Please take care of him. Julia and I will be back. Can you bring a bottle of the Syrah we had for Julia's birthday?"

"We still have some."

"That would be perfect," Quentin says. "Fifteen minutes. I swear."

He tugs Eliot's shoulder down to kiss his cheek, and then heads for Julia's apartment at a run. His keys still work, and he lets himself into—

"Julia?"

It's chaos. Piles of pizza boxes. Empty wine bottles, dishes in the sink, wrinkled laundry piled on the corner of a couch, overflowing ashtrays. It's like she had a party or something. Quentin skirts around the wreckage, headed for Julia's bedroom.

"Julia?"

Julia's room is a shambles, and the walls are nearly invisible. Papers pinned in layers, photographs, drawings--they crowd against each other for attention. Crumpled paper lay in drifts on the floor--what's going on here? What is all this stuff?

"Julia." That lump in the middle of her bed among piles of books, her laptop--that's Julia, right? Quentin breathes in stale cigarette smoke and comes closer. "Wake up."

Julia lifts her head, and her eyes shine with pale blue light. Quentin's not even sure he saw it— a trick of the light? She squints at Quentin, and sits up, rubbing her face. "What time is it?"

"Seven. You have to get up. I couldn't come alone; Eliot's waiting for us."

"What? No. I told you—"

"I know. But I needed his help. I didn't tell him anything, but he can help us. He's really good, and—"

"No," Julia says. "Oh god. Where is he?"

"At the Escape. I bought a bottle. Are you hungry?"

"What did you tell him? And where are my pages?"

"Here." Quentin fishes the sheaf of notes out of his bag and Julis grabs them, reaching for a cigarette. She lights it and browses the pages, flipping over Quentin's tidy, architectural script, stopping to squint at the diagrams.

"You need your glasses?"

"No." she drops the pages on the bed. "I don't know what the fuck that says."

"I don't either," Quentin says. "But Eliot—"

"Who the fuck is this guy?" Julia asks, her eyebrows slanted downward. "It's all I hear out of you. Eliot this, Eliot that—"

"He's—" Quentin shrugs. "He's, I think he's my boyfriend. Or he's going to be. Or—"

"Jesus, Q. You brought--okay," Julia clamps the cigarette between her lips and scratches her scalp. Her roots are greasy. "Look. I had another dream. She was there again, and I got closer, but—"

"She? Who is ‘she’?"

"I don't know," Julia says. "But the dreams are so real. I'm going down the stairs to the subway, but I never make it to the station, and then she's there, she's dark, but she glows, and she wants me to come to her, but then the wings are so loud. They whisper to me. They told me about the right of presence. They told me you were the key, but when I stop to listen to them, she disappears."

"Dreams," Quentin says. "This is all because of dreams?"

"Onieromancy," Julia says. "They're dream visions. It's a manifestation of magic."

"They were supposed to wipe your memory."

"They tried," Julia says. She crushes out the cigarette and crawls out of bed. She finds a hat with a wide brim and slaps it over her greasy roots. She tears apart the laundry pile to find clean, wrinkly clothes. "Look at this, Quentin. Just look."

She puts her fingertips together, staring at them with furrowed concentration, and slowly pulls them a half inch apart. Yellow-orange light sparks from her fingers, then fizzles out.

"See? Magic," Julia says.

"I see it." Julia's right. She's not latent. "What do the dreams say?"

"They guide me," Julia says. "I've written it all down, I chase down everything I see. I've got so many pieces but I don't see how they all fit—"

"Okay," Quentin says. "I believe you. I'll help you. But let me tell Eliot."

"No."

"Julia."

"The voices are clear. You are the key. Not you and your nerdmate. We can't tell him. So you ditched me for Harvard, I'm mad at you, but you're my best friend and I love you so we're trying to patch things up. We'll drink wine, we'll eat dolmas, and then you're going to find me everything you can on sympathetic attractions when you get back. Okay?"

"He's going to find out when you succeed," Quentin says. "And he'll know I lied to him. I can't do that. Relationships are built on trust."

"Quentin. You met this guy on Friday. You've known me since we were seven. And he's more important than me? Is that what you're saying?"

"I'm saying he is important. Already. And I'm asking you to please. Don't make me lie to him."

"Will you do it if I tell you to?"

"Yes," Quentin says. "So please, let me tell him."

"Let me meet him. And think about it. You can call me tomorrow."


	6. fifteen, sixteen, seventeen

15\. Syrah, dolmas, and lies

 

They're late. Eliot waits in the nicest booth in the place with a plate of dolmas and a dish of olives in front of him, and he dazzles them both with a welcoming smile.

"You must be Julia."

"You're Eliot," Julia says. "I—holy shit. Q, you didn't tell me he was a fox."

Quentin shrugs. "Would you have believed me? He's probably never seen a deck of Magic: The Gathering cards in his life."

"From afar," Eliot says. "Come here." 

He stretches out his arm, drawing Quentin in under his wing, and kisses Quentin's temple. "All okay?" he whispers, and more loudly, says, "The wine you chose is excellent."

Julia peers at the bottle, and her eyes go wide. "That's the birthday wine. Q, that stuff was expensive."

"But really good," Quentin says. "Hey, Armen."

"Quentin!" Armen's bright smile widens when he sees Quentin cuddling with Eliot. "Your hair looks so good. How's Harvard?"

"Harvard's been very good to me so far."

"So I see," Armen says. "I'm going to bring you tasting plates. We have a new chef, and she's a phenomenon."

"That's perfect," Quentin says. "Thank you."

Julia examines Quentin's hair. "You got a haircut. And you saw a colorist."

"A master colorist." Eliot pinches a red-brown olive between his fingers and holds it to Quentin's mouth. "Andre's been on the leading edge forever."

"You did a hand-painted balayage with Andre Morena? He's got a six month waiting list."

Quentin swallows, making an _mm_ sound claiming his place in the conversation. "Eliot's friend Margo is a good friend of his. She got me in."

"Wow," Julia says. "It looks really good." 

Eliot combs his fingers into Quentin's hair and lets it riffle out of his fingers. "It's fascinating. There's so many different colors. And when the sunlight hits it—"

"I can guess." Julia sips her wine, glancing at the bottle. "How did you come down from Cambridge?"

"We took my car," Eliot says. "And we broke a few laws, but whatever. Q said he needed to see you."

"And you got parking?"

Eliot shrugs. "I'm lucky."

"You really are," Julia says. "Are you in the same MBA program as Quentin?"

Eliot laughs. "I'm not. Literature."

Julia leans forward. "Really. I majored in literature for undergrad."

"She did political science and literature," Quentin says. "She—"

"—What branch of literature interests you the most?" Julia plucks up one of the dolmas and bites into it.

"Celtic. Medieval Irish specifically," Eliot says. "Is that our tasting?"

Armen returns with a large plate arranged with samples of various dishes. "There's enough for a good taste of everything," Armen says. He lingers long enough to pour more wine and then whisks away. 

Eliot takes a kebab from the platter and offers it to Quentin on a fork. "This smells so good. I think there's cinnamon in the marinade."

There is. Juicy, hot lamb morsels beg him for a sip of the syrah, and it's perfect, round with forest berries. The powerful tannins, tamed by the interaction with the lamb, makes him nod enthusiastically at Eliot, who samples kebab and chases it with a sip of the wine. 

"Oh that's glorious," Eliot says, smiling.

Julia barely glances at the selection of dishes. "What do you do with a Masters in Medieval Celtic Literature, exactly?"

Quentin bites his lip. "Julia."

Eliot answers, as if the question wasn't barbed. "PhD. Research and scholarly work. Really complicated fantasy novels involving time travel and romance. Starting a neopagan tradition, if I really want to get wild."

The answer doesn't do anything to ease the suspicious set of her jaw. "You'd make a pretty good cult leader, I think."

"Julia."

"No, Q. You're taking out student loans to keep up with this—admittedly very pretty trustafarian—"

Eliot nods, taking no offense. "Thank you."

Julia ignores him. "And you've just blown three hundred bucks on dinner."

"I blew three hundred bucks on dinner," Eliot corrects. "I understand your concern. I think it's touching. But Quentin's not emptying his pockets to impress me."

Julia drinks some of her wine. "I'm not trying to pick a fight."

"You're not?" Quentin asks. "Because you're implying that a guy like Eliot couldn't possibly see anything worthwhile in a guy like me—"

"It was _Fillory and Further,_ " Eliot says. "He was reading _The World in the Walls,_ and I loved that book as a child, but I hadn't read it in ages. So we talked about it."

Julia taps her finger on the table. "You talked about it."

Eliot runs one finger up the stem of his wineglass and picks it up. "You've talked to Quentin before. You've stayed up with him until long after bedtime, just talking. Once you get him started, you don't want him to stop. I liked it."

Quentin's face flushes, hot and glad, even though Eliot's lying and Julia's lying right back. She hates him. Why? "He got me started."

"We talked about Fillory. About what it means to believe in magic."

Julia flinches just around the eyes. Eliot doesn't seem to notice. "I bought my own copy. We talked about it again. You're right. He's not like the shallow, WASPy legacy students you imagine as my friends."

"You sound very happy. Like it's been five years instead of five days."

Eliot shrugs. "I bond quickly. And you're worried I'm going to cut out his heart and eat it." 

"That's an evocative image. Did you get that from the Ulster Cycle?"

_"Snow White."_ Eliot reaches for a delicately layered phyllo pastry and puts it in Quentin's mouth before taking one for himself. "And while I understand that I'm the symbol of the forces that stole your best friend away from you, the animosity is getting a bit tiring."

"Did you get that out of a psych 101 textbook?" Julia asks.

"Literature contains multitudes," Eliot says. "Love. Fear. Jealousy. It's all there. And between you and me? I'd rather cut the shit and come together in support, what do you say?"

"Quentin’s not a story. I won’t let him get hurt," Julia says.

"I know." Eliot's voice is soft. "But I don't think forcing loyalty is the best way to protect someone you love. Ah, Armen."

Armen stops. "What would you like?"

Eliot dabbles his fingers on a napkin. "I think we have to get back. Can you box all this for Julia to take home? And I'll settle up at the bar." Eliot slides out of the booth. "I'll get the car."

What car? "Okay."

He's gone in two heartbeats. Quentin stares at Julia. "Did you have to lay it on with a trowel?"

"The best lies have truth at their heart," Julia says. "Look at you. What's that sweater, cashmere? You smell like expensive perfume. Your hair cost four hundred bucks at least. He's changing you, Q."

"I'm still me. And you can't say you never tried to change my clothes or anything like that."

Julia heaves a sigh, staring at the ceiling. "He's too good at lying. He just sat here and sold me a degree in Medieval Irish lit. He never missed a step."

"You were lying too," Quentin says.

"I get it," Julia says. "I really do. He's sophisticated, he's handsome, and he obviously likes you. But if he's that good at lying to me, how do you know he isn't lying to you?"

That's not fair. Especially not after Julia just pulled off jealous, hurt friend like she just sauntered off Broadway. "Because he promised. And he deserves the same thing from me, and we can fix this if we just—"

"No," Julia says. "You said you would keep my secret."

"You said you'd think about it."

"I did, but—"

"Look. Go to bed. Maybe a dream will tell you what to do. But you just dug me way too deep with all that jealous best friend stuff."

"I am your jealous best friend," Julia says. "It's been five days. You practically fucking sizzle when you touch. He _fed_ you. He's—he's just too much. I'm worried for you."

"So I'm not tall enough to ride Eliot's ride?" Quentin asks. 

Julia puts on a patient look. "So you should ask yourself what he wants."

"Because it can't be me," Quentin says. "That's what you're saying. You called him my nerdmate before you even saw him. You don't believe I could—"

Julia leans closer, her voice a vicious whisper. "What? What don't I believe, Q? That Mr. Gay Ivy League could ever look at you twice without a good reason? Go ahead and say it."

A hot, spiky pain aches in his chest. "So you can tell me I'm right? Never mind. I've gotta go."

He slides out of the booth and winds his way around tables half-filled with diners—the real rush will come when the theaters let out—and he's shoving his way out the door before he realizes he doesn't know how to find Eliot, who pretended to go get a car—

The smoked passenger side window of a silver roadster parked at the curb rolls down, and Eliot's in the driver's seat.

"Ready to go?" he asks over the infectious beat of an Arctic Monkeys song.

"Where—"

The door to the restaurant opens behind him. "Quentin—"

Quentin lifts one hand, forestalling conversation. He opens the passenger side door, twists around to grab the seatbelt, and watches Julia's face melt into pain and worry as he raises the passenger window.

 

16\. Truth, whispered near the stars

 

Eliot pulls into traffic, one hand on the steering wheel as he eases the stick into changing gears. The engine purrs for him as he drives, and fuck if it isn't sexy as hell, watching him handle the controls. He glances briefly at Quentin, steering effortlessly through traffic. When he stops at a red light, Eliot says, "Sorry. I can take a lot, but she was hurting you."

"She's hurt too. Where—where did you get this car?"

Eliot grins. "You like it?"

"It's beautiful." The car vibrates under them, a barely leashed, powerful beast. The interior smells like leather and sandalwood; the sound coming out of the speakers is warm and precise. "But where did you get it?"

Eliot shrugs and turns left. "I stole it."

"What?"

"There are vehicles out there that telekinetics can't steal, but this? Doesn't have the deluxe security package. It'll be all right. There's an anchor point in Yonkers." Eliot deftly switches lanes and noses a little further up before stopping at another light. 

"Is this something you wind up doing often?"

"Needed it for the cover story, and I was too vain to take the Focus." Eliot steals the chance to make a left and zip down a one-way street. "I'm so sorry, Q."

That might have been the most disastrous meal he'd ever attended. "I hoped you would get along."

"She wants to protect you. But I mean I'm sorry you have to lie to her. That can't feel good."

Quentin looks out the passenger side window. Something small and sharp slides between his ribs, piercing his heart. 

"It doesn't feel good," Quentin says. "It doesn't feel good at all."

Eliot drives like a demon. He dips in and out of traffic, never loses his cool at other drivers, and he makes it look so _easy_. He shifts gears with unerring precision, and he knows exactly what's going on around him. "So I need to tell you something." 

"What?"

He lets another motorist join traffic after wrestling out of a parallel parking space. "I want you to listen to me," he says. "Just listen. And then you can ask me whatever you want. Okay?"

"Okay."

Eliot dials the music down and slows, watching a pedestrian lope across the street. "I do like your hand-painted balayage," Eliot says. "And I like your cashmere sweaters and your vintage denim jeans and your shiny black boots and all of Margo’s subtle little changes. Yes. They make you more attractive in a way I appreciate. I thought you were a cutie without them."

It eases the tension in his chest. A little. "Okay. I wasn't taking Julia seriously. She just—"

"I'm not done." The turn signal clicks. Eliot slips into the right lane, waiting at the red. "I did read _Fillory and Further_ when I was a kid. I did love it. That was true. I can speak Irish, and I know enough medieval Irish to cast with. That was true. I do bond quickly. That was true too. And Q—"

A flock of chic looking women strut along the crosswalk, peering into the Audi's windshield. One of them smiles at Eliot. He smiles back, but he reaches out to caress Quentin's shoulder.

"I heard you put yourself down back there, and I didn't like it."

Quentin looks down at his hands. "Julia knows exactly how many boyfriends I've had."

"That doesn't matter," Eliot says. "There is a lot to see in you. All your wonder. All your awe and joy…and the way you look when I've kissed you senseless and you've changed your mind about pants staying on."

Quentin has to smile at that. He'd begged. But Eliot was firm, not crossing the line. But Eliot's not done, and so Quentin folds his hands and listens.

"I like the way you read. I love watching you drink wine. You are smart. And steady. And I feel like I want to tell you everything—every secret, everything I hide, because you'll take care of it. You'll take care of me."

Oh god. All the warmth that had been building inside him flees. "Eliot."

Eliot promised honesty. He _promised_. And Quentin should be bubbling over. There should be violins.

Eliot's smile fades. his face swings into worry, sadness. "Or. Maybe that's not what you wanted. Okay. Okay. I do casual like a champ."

They're on the highway now. Eliot turns the music up and pushes the roadster harder, weaving around other cars. He doesn't look at Quentin. They tear up the road and soon the green highway signs proclaim Yonkers is the next exit.

Eliot doesn't say anything. Quentin's stomach is full of lead. "Eliot—"

"It's okay," Eliot says. "We can still have a good time. Right? I'm good at that."

"That's not what I want," Quentin says. "I—"

"Shh. I said it's okay."

Eliot pulls into the parking lot of a groomed little park with stately old trees and a statue in the middle. He pets the dashboard as if the car can feel and respond to such things. "Thank you, little Audi. It's been fun."

Eliot tuts at the car when they're both out, and little orange sparks dance over the seats, the steering wheel, the gearshift. "No more fingerprints, no more DNA," Eliot says. "This car was jacked by ghosts."

It's amazing. But Quentin can't speak. He can't open his mouth. How did this shatter, just like that?

"This way." Eliot walks straight into the park, headed for the shadows. They walk between two trees, and they're in Brakebills a step later. The wind shimmies in the leaves, making them whisper. 

Quentin can't. He can't just walk away. He can't break this, the way he's broken everything else. "Eliot. Stop."

Eliot goes still. He turns. "Yes?"

So polite. Oh, god. Quentin opens his mouth. He drags in a cut-lawn scented breath and swallows the lump in his throat. "I have to tell you something. I promised Julia I wouldn't. But I can't. After what you just said to me, I can't do it."

Eliot nods. He looks away. "Okay."

"We lied," Quentin says. "I let you believe a lie. And I asked Julia to let me tell you but she doesn't trust you, and I don't care. I trust you, Eliot. I have to tell you."

He looks back, curious now. "What?"

"Julia didn't get wiped properly," Quentin says. "She isn't latent. She can make magic glow from her fingertips. And she says she's having dreams about how to come back to Brakebills, but she needs my help."

Eliot's mouth slips open; he moves closer. "She wouldn't let you tell me her secret."

"Yes."

"But—" Eliot grips Quentin's shoulders. The touch almost makes him weep. "She's your friend. Since you were kids. You—"

"Have known you five days. Yes, I know. I'm sick of hearing that," Quentin says. "But how were you going to feel when all of a sudden Julia's at Brakebills, and I didn't tell you the truth after you promised Margo you would be honest with me? Could you trust me ever again? Even if you understood the reason?"

"Quentin," Eliot says. "You—You care about me that much? She tests your loyalty, and you choose me?"

"I choose both of you." Quentin cups Eliot's face, cradling his jaw in trembling hands. "Julia will forgive me. She can take it. You—I don't want to lose you. And that would have done it. Wouldn't it?"

Eliot's face breaks into huge-eyed tenderness. "I would have tried very hard to understand. I would have seen the logic of your choice. I would have put myself in your shoes, and—" 

"Exactly," Quentin says. "You would have tried to understand. I know you would. But—"

"But you trust me. Quentin," Eliot whispers. "Quentin Coldwater. I remember the last time someone trusted me with a secret. I'm still ashamed of it."

Quentin caresses Eliot's cheek. "You're a different person now."

"I am," Eliot says, "but until this moment I didn't believe I was a better person."

It's too much. It's more than he can say, more than he would be able to say even if he had a hundred years to try. 

Eliot steps closer. He tilts Quentin's chin up; he bends and slowly, gently kisses Quentin's lips. When he straightens, starlight glistens in his tear-filled eyes. "Thank you."

When Eliot gazes at him, Quentin understands what makes Eliot want to watch him be moved to wonder and joy. Watching Eliot's face is magnificent. It wakes Quentin inside, stirs him up as if he's a part of it— 

He is. This feeling, this reverent, hushed, beautiful moment, that's both of them.

"Take me home, El. Take me home and—"

"Yes," Eliot says. "I will."

 

17\. The root of the root and the bud of the bud

 

They can't stop kissing. Eliot turns the lock on his bedroom door with a click, and a magical gesture lights every candle in the room, bathing them in soft, golden light. Quentin reaches for Eliot's tie, unraveling the complex, silky knot snug against the collar button, exactly the way he'd daydreamed about it. 

It's almost too much to handle. Eliot slides Quentin’s sweater up and off, letting it fall to the floor. The talisman clatters when it hits the floorboards. Waves of sensation radiate from Eliot's touch, rippling over his skin and it's never been like this. Quentin holds on for dear life, moaning as Eliot plays his fingers in soft spirals down Quentin's back.

"How far, Q? Tell me where to stop."

"Don't stop," Quentin says. "All the way. Please."

Fuck. It's too much, but he doesn't want it to stop. And the quiet, brilliant moment after telling Eliot the truth picks up speed and sound and sensation, glowing inside Quentin's heart and mind. It's too much to hold in, too much to carry under his skin. He has to let it out.

Buttons fall open under Quentin's fingers, slowly unwrapping Eliot so he has more to touch, more to kiss and nuzzle. "Eliot. Fuck me. Please. I need you to—"

"Shh. Slow," Eliot says, but then he's kissing Quentin's throat and it's so perfect. Warm, nimble fingers pull the tongue of his belt free, and he's helping Eliot shove them down his hips, _that's right_ , _get them off_. He steps on the hems so he can pull his feet free, pulling Eliot's belt open as he kisses Eliot's collarbone. It's not enough. He only has one mouth, two hands, and— 

"Slow," Eliot whispers. 

"I can't, I need to—"

But Eliot pushes just a little, walking Quentin backwards to the bed. "Sit. Listen. I have to tell you something."

He moves just out of reach and raises his hands, unfastening his cufflinks. Soft candlelight gilds the notch at the base of his throat; every inch of skin he exposes is delectable.

"I can't fuck you tonight, Quentin."

What? But he wants it. He wants to feel Eliot inside him. He wants Eliot to wreck him completely, and he knows Eliot could do that, and he said he wants to. So—

"Why?"

It must have come out sounding hurt. 

"Quentin. Believe me. I want to. But trust me, okay?"

What Quentin wouldn't give to have Eliot look at him like that all the time--serene and gentle and filled with heart.

"I trust you," Quentin says. "But I want—I want to give you—" 

Fuck. It sounds so stupid. But Eliot's face softens, and he smiles. "I'm honored. You've given me so much. We will. But not until you're ready."

Julia didn't have to say it. But hearing it from Eliot makes something in his chest crumple. He's not a toy, dammit. And he's not a virgin, though Eliot has a way of bringing him to places he's never been. "But I want—"

All those worries fly out of his mind when Eliot unzips his trousers. Nudging against the waistband of his underwear is the outline of his dick. Oh, god. Quentin holds down a gasp as Eliot bends to get rid of the last of his clothes; when he stands up, Quentin can't look anywhere but at him.

Eliot steps closer, the candlelight glowing on his skin, and Quentin can't stop staring at the biggest cock he has ever seen in his life.

"Scoot up," Eliot says. "Lie back. I want you to fuck me, Quentin. Will you?"

The question makes him see stars. "Yes." 

"Thank you."

The soft, cool duvet under Quentin's back rubs against his skin like velvet. Eliot straddles Quentin's hips and pins Quentin's hands over his head. Dark curls tumble forward, and Eliot's face in light and shadow is so beautiful Quentin stares. He wants to remember this, exactly this--the warm beeswax smell mingling with perfume and skin, the shivering anticipation in his stomach, and Eliot holding him to the bed as Quentin squirms and groans.

"Eliot." Shivers race over his skin, and he clamps his lips shut, not that it stops the noises one bit. "Oh fuck, Eliot, I can't—" 

"It's okay," Eliot whispers. "I've got you."

They kiss again, and Quentin raises his head to meet Eliot's lips. It's too much. He can't think straight through Eliot's mind-bending kisses and the sensation of Eliot's body heat teasing his skin, punctuated by the blissful, velvet glide of their cocks brushing against each other, but not hard enough. Filled to the brim and overflowing, Quentin aches for more. 

His hands are set free. Eliot stretches to get something out of the nightstand, and Quentin traces his finger over Eliot's collarbones, glides down to touch springy, soft hair on his chest and play little circles along warm, silky skin. Eliot hisses, skin twitching as Quentin's touch— 

"Tickles?"

"Yes." Eliot twitches again, hissing.

The grin that spreads across Quentin's face stretches his cheeks. "I'll remember that." 

But what he wants is just a few inches away from the wandering path of his fingers. Eliot shivers the moment Quentin slides his hand around the girth. He sits up so Quentin can see him, long, lean body shadowed by dark hair on his chest and belly, and that cock jutting away from his body, the thick head shiny with arousal.

Quentin's mouth waters. Slick fluid coats his thumb as he draws his hand over the glans, and Quentin lifts his hand to his mouth to lick the sea-taste off his skin. 

Eliot bites his lip and stares at Quentin's mouth. "

Eliot leans forward to taste himself on Quentin's tongue. A plastic cap pops open near Quentin's ear. A condom packet lands on Quentin's chest.

Well. He knows what to do with that. The condom's the right way out when he pulls it out of the packet; Eliot squirts a little lube into the tip and Quentin rolls it down his dick. More lube on the outside as Eliot swiftly readies himself. He rises on his knees and holds Quentin's cock at the angle he wants.

Quentin stays still, and he's nudging up against Eliot's body, but he doesn't push or move or even breathe. Half-twisted at the waist, Eliot breathes out and pushes; the tip of Quentin's dick inside as Eliot hisses.

"Are you okay?"

Eliot nods. "Got a little greedy."

It's fucking torture. Eliot is tight and hot and Quentin's not going to move an inch while Eliot—beautiful, golden-glowing Eliot—seats himself on Quentin's cock. It's a slow, tight squeeze, and Quentin shuts his eyes and lets out an open mouthed sigh when Eliot's all the way down, Quentin's whole cock sheathed inside him.

And then, slowly, agonizingly, Eliot rises off Quentin's length and moves, and Quentin can't even think. He's so dazzling, so beautiful. Candlelight flickers in his eyes; he watches Quentin as he moves his hips in rolling, sensual waves, leaning back to get exactly the angle he wants. 

A groan, a sigh--and then Eliot rises half way up, the long muscles of his thighs flexed.

"Ready?"

There's a wickedness to his smile. He knows what's coming, while Quentin's scrambling to stay still, his toes curled with the effort of not moving, of letting Eliot ease into being filled.

"You're amazing," Quentin says. "And you're so gorgeous."

"You should see yourself." Eliot rolls his hips, and his smile widens as Quentin digs his teeth into his lip. Hold on. Hold on, dammit. "Watching you respond is exquisite."

He moves again, and a smile spreads across his face as he watches Quentin struggle to keep himself together. Deeper. Faster. He lets his head fall back as he bites down a groan, and Quentin doesn't know if he can hold back. Everything is cresting over him, knocking him into the tide He grabs Eliot's hips, digging his heels into the mattress as he abandons all control.

"Oh, fuck. Fuck me, Quentin. Hard. Hard."

Eliot bites his own lip and the sight drives Quentin harder. Faster, oh fuck, more. Ragged, moaning breaths fill the air, and Eliot slides his left hand down his body to circle his cock. The candles flicker; the magnified shadow of fluttering wings dance over the ceiling just behind Eliot's head.

"Quentin." Eliot strokes his cock, his teeth buried in his lip, letting go as he rides the crash of their bodies. His skin glows with sweat; his eyelids slip closed.

"Gonna come," he breathes, and Quentin comes completely apart. 

They sync up; bodies and voices releasing in the same moments. Eliot squeezes so tight Quentin shouts, and splashes of wetness land on Quentin's belly and chest. They gasp for breath, lost, and Quentin's hands and chest are so warm, tingling with the thick, flowing feel of— 

"Quentin," Eliot says. "Your hands."

Quentin opens his eyes.

The center of his palms glow, matching the shine from his ribcage. "What—"

Quentin stares at his hands. The glow fades, but slowly, the heat lingering after the light is gone. 

"Strong emotions," Eliot says. "Big feelings, Q. It's not just pain and darkness that makes magic. Joy does too. Ecstasy. Bliss. Sexual fulfilment."

Love?

But Eliot doesn't say it, and Quentin doesn't either. 


	7. eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one

18\. Krasnikov in a handful of dirt

 

The shower in the bathroom Eliot and Margo share is heaven. Q watches Eliot's reflection get soapy and wet in the bathroom mirror, and hurries through brushing his teeth. Eliot drags him into the nexus of all those shower heads and gives him a minty fresh kiss.

"Good morning."

Quentin smiles. "Can I help you wash?"

"I was going to help you."

They cooperate. Soap flies everywhere, and Quentin yelps when he rises five inches in the air, now nose to nose with Eliot.

"Hi," Eliot says. He pours a handful of body wash in one palm, stealing another kiss.

"So I'm literally walking on air," Quentin says. "What's with the new perspective?"

"I think you'll like this." Eliot drags Quentin closer, gripping both their dicks in one soapy hand.

"I do," Quentin says. "I do like this."

"Do you have to go to class today?" Eliot asks, between kisses that steal Quentin's wits. "We could spend the day naked and debauched."

" _We_ have to go to class today—ohh, oh fuck."

Eliot watches Quentin with a smile at his expression, squeezing harder. "You sure?"

The tight slide of their dicks together is awesome. Awesome. Quentin shivers and fucks Eliot's hand faster.

"I'll see you right after class. I will run," Quentin promises. "Will you be here when I get here?"

"Yes. Absolutely." The full, long slide of his cock against Quentin's is making it hard to think. "I will sit at home and wait for you. Do you know what you want to do?." 

"Oh fuck. Yes." Quentin kisses Eliot hard and leans back, hips pumping. "I'm gonna come."

Eliot watches every second of it. They have to put the bed between them so they can stop kissing long enough to get dressed.

Someone put a pot of steel cut oats in the slow cooker. It's not bacon and eggs but it's hot and there's plenty of butter and sugar. Quentin fills a paper cup with coffee from the tall stainless steel urn and hurries to class, where Alice takes her extra books off the seat to her right.

"Hey. Thanks," Quentin says. 

"We have a moment," Alice says. "Try to make a light, from page 37 of Popper."

Quentin pages through the book and goes through the hand motions first, just to make them smooth, and murmurs, "ilum."

A light shines from the tip of his steepled fingers. Alice leans over, her face alight with excitement. "You did it!"

The tiny light shines, steady as a single candle flame. Inside it, Eliot bends over him and plants a gentle kiss to his lips.

"I'm not latent."

"This is amazing," Alice says. "Your first try. You must have—oh." She looks down. "I'm sorry."

"What? No. Don't be," Quentin says. "This is wonderful. This is great. I'm doing magic."

He smiles at Alice, and she watches the light. 

"We can do more," she says. "Are you taking the under-theory class? I've decided to attend. March's critical examination on the question of determinism vs. free will pulled me in."

"I'm gonna do it," Quentin nods. He pulls out a sheet. "I'm not sure what else to take. I need languages. I know a little Latin, but—"

"There are some truly fascinating spellways from Norway. You showed compatibility with Catalan. Part of Popper's book is to determine linguistic affinity. We could try some more over lunch."

"I have to go to the library," Quentin says. "I need to research sympathetic attraction."

"That's a core principle of magic. You'll be studying that for years." Alice taps the end of her pen on her notebook. A bit of blue light sparks on her glasses. "Do you have a specific interest?"

"Um. Spell security, like wards, and also portal travel."

"You just got here and already you want to leave," Alice says. It's meant to be a joke, but something about the tense set of her mouth makes Quentin feel an ache.

"It's not that," Quentin says. "But wouldn't it be great? Say we're studying about a place. Why not go to the place?"

"It's not quite that easy," Alice says. "Travelers can go anywhere at will, even other worlds, but for the rest of us need to find a way to connect two points through sympathetic attraction so they resonate through the Krasnikov effect."

Quentin holds up his hand, fumbling for Eliot's pen. "Wait, let me write that down. Thanks, Alice. I think this is what I'm looking for."

"It's relatively new magic," Alice says. "There's a bunch of theoretical physicists trying to figure out faster than light travel—"

"Wait. A Krasnikov tube? Magicians can make Krasnikov tubes?" Quentin nearly knocks his books off the desk in his excitement.

"Yes. But the limitations of magic still apply," Alice says. "You need to connect the two places sympathetically."

"How?"

"Dirt," Alice says. "The dirt of the place you want to go. That's why so many portal spells are anchored in parks."

"I could just hug you," Quentin says. "That's exactly what I needed to know."

"You can hug me," Alice says. "It's nice that you asked first."

The arm connecting the seat back to the desktop is in their way, but Quentin wraps Alice up in a hug. Alice squeezes tight and holds on as if no one has hugged her in a while.

Quentin strokes her back, just between her shoulder blades. "If you need help with something, let me know. I can try, at least."

"Thank you."

It's hard to let go, but Alice finally relaxes her grip, smiling awkwardly at Quentin. He smiles back and wonders what else is hurting Alice Quinn, what makes her crave a freely offered touch.

"Are you okay?"

"My appointment for determining my discipline is today," Alice says. "Sorting Hat jitters."

"I have to do it again," Quentin says. "The first time didn't take."

"It will this time," Alice said, but then the clock strikes nine and she turns to face their instructor, ready to take notes.

 

19\. Causality and chardonnay

 

Thanks to Alice's help, Quentin knows exactly what to search for in the library, and what information to exclude as he writes out notes for Julia. She'll come around once she's here at Brakebills. She'll see how good he and Eliot are together. Everything will work out, and that's why he writes until his hand cramps, even with the amazing glide of the pen Eliot gave him yesterday.

He stuffs the paper in his bag and ignores the payphones outside of the library to head for the solitary phone mounted under the student union building. It's cool under the building again, and Quentin unfolds the cuffs of Eliot's borrowed shirt and pulls his sleeves down before dialing Julia's number.

She answers it on the first ring. "Quentin. I'm so sorry. I was such an asshole to you last night."

Quentin smiles. "Yeah, you were. But you are my best friend and I love you, even if I'm pissed off."

"You're right to be. How many times have I said that people were stupid for passing you over? And then you meet a guy who's so sexy it _hurts_ and he's so _into you_ and I just…I pissed all over it, Q. I'm an ass."

She's slurring her words. "Are you drunk?"

"I might have borrowed a bottle of the Pouilly-Fuissée you were hoarding."

He honestly bought the white wine for her. "Okay."

"And a Mâconnais," Julia says. The scratch and click of her cigarette lighter sounds in Quentin's ear, and the couch creaks as she gets up. "I'm glad you called me. I woke up and I thought _what if he doesn't call me what if I fucked up so bad_ —I'm so sorry."

"Thank you. I'm not the only one who needs to hear that, though."

"Oh, god. I was a total ass to your boyfriend! Oh my god you're not going to invite me to your big gay wedding—"

"Hey whoa. You're my best man, you know that." Quentin can't help the little shiver. Big gay wedding. Way too early for that. Way. Stop thinking about it. Don't go there—

"What am I gonna do?"

"You're going to talk to him. Tell him how you felt. Be honest even if it's a little ugly. Make it clear you know how you fucked up and how you want to continue so you're not grudging at each other. How's that sound?"

"Right away. Tonight," Julia says. "Please come tonight, please, I can't be enemies with your man."

"We were gonna—um. Do something naked," Quentin says.

Julia laughs. "I bet he's hot in bed."

"Do you remember when you first met Jeremy Cantor and he took you out on a date and you came back and rated every orgasm you had because he was a mad beast?"

"Yeah. Shit, are you saying he's a mad beast?"

"I'm saying I'm not going to rate my orgasms with Eliot to you, if that's okay."

"Okay well. You have to decide. Do you do naked things with Eliot, and give his annoyance at me time to sink in, or do you come see me so I can eat my words and apologize, and _then_ you do naked things with Eliot?"

Quentin watches tonight's plans flutter away. "How about I discuss it with him before making a decision?"

"Okay, fair. But you know in your heart what you need to do," Julia says. "Did you look into sympathetic attractions yet, or were you calling about something else?"

Oh. Right. "I did. And I copied a bunch of stuff for you, because I think you're onto something. I wound up writing about the theory of postal construction and guess what? They piggybacked the idea off theoretical physics, it's so cool—"

"What?"

"It's called a Krasnikov tube."

Computer keys rattle as she types into a search engine. "Super-luminal tunnels...distortion of spacetime...okay now you have to come tonight. I need those pages. I have to figure this out fast or I'm going to be too far behind to ever catch up."

She has a point. Discipline analysis is still going, but she's missing fundamentals classes every day she's not here. Specialized classes are filling while he's standing here on the phone. He sighs.

"You're right. Naked time has to wait."

"I'm sorry for the cockblock but yes." The fridge door clunks as she latches it shut. "Will you make dinner? You can impress him with your cooking." 

 

20\. Pork chops and prophecies

 

Eliot's not lying on the bed wearing nothing but a smile, at least. Quentin pushes open the door to Eliot's room, following the sound of a rapidly clacking typewriter. Eliot sits at his desk typing with a red pen clamped between his teeth. In profile, he's stunning: his normally tidy hair loose and curly, his aquiline nose supporting a pair of delicate silver-rimmed spectacles, his forearms rippling with the work of pressing manual keys. A tumbler of whisky sits beside him, but when Eliot stops to read over his work, his left knee bouncing impatiently, he ignores it, makes a note with the red pen, and gets back to work.

Quentin could stand here for an hour just to watch Eliot concentrating. It's beautiful to watch. He pulls the sheet of paper off the roller and winds another page in the machine, squinting at his last page for reference before diving back in.

He only types a pair of lines before he stands up, shaking out his hands. When he sees Quentin, he smiles. "Hey."

"Hi. I didn't want to disturb you."

"You were right about needing to go to class. I have a hellish paper due. But now that you're here, all work and no play makes Eliot a dull boy."

Quentin rubs away an itch on the nape of his neck. Eliot's smile fades before he picks it up again. He comes close and sniffs, nodding. "We're not getting naked, are we?"

"I called Julia. She wants to apologize to you."

Eliot shrugs. "We can walk over to SU, sure. I'll talk to her."

Quentin's shoulders go up as his face stretches into and 'I fucked up' smile. "In person. Over dinner. Which she wrangled me into cooking."

"If you're feeling nervous about tonight, we can—"

Quentin steps closer, his hands on Eliot's shoulders, and lowers his voice. "Maybe a little. But not enough to do this on purpose. She's a mess, El. She really regrets it." 

Eliot smooths Quentin's collar down. "All right. Oral and cuddling after?" 

"Thank you. Also you'll get to eat my cooking."

Eliot opens the hall closet and the sharp slacks and waistcoat match a perfectly fitted jacket. "Are you a good cook?"

"Something about me," Quentin says. "When I like a thing, like Fillory or wine or kissing you, I tend to deep dive into the thing. I like cooking."

"So this is going to be good."

Eliot raises his hand, and Quentin mimics the gesture. Half of it, at least. They walk out of the cottage and back to west 46th. Quentin smiles and leads the way over to the apartment he used to share with Julia, smelling the yeasty aroma of baking bread.

He unlocks the door and it's bread and cinnamon. The apartment sparkles. Fresh cut flowers float in a wide, shallow bowl in the middle of the table, already set for a meal.

Julia's beautiful. Shiny hair, a deep teal wrap dress, grey suede boots. Her makeup's flawless and natural, and she watches Eliot draw near with a wavering, uncertain smile.

"I was terrible to you last night," she says, and ushers him to sit on the peacock-teal velvet couch. "There's no excuse for it. I was hurt and jealous and I lashed out at you."

"I understand," Eliot says. "But you hurt Quentin more. He wanted to share someone special with you."

"I'm gonna—start dinner," Quentin says. He retreats to the clean kitchen and checks the dishwasher. Full, but clean. Quentin puts dishes away, inspects the state of his knives, hones them with quick, easy movements. 

There's thick pork chops in the fridge. Green beans, fingerling potatoes, fresh herbs in pots on the windowsill. A whole pineapple—out of season, so it was expensive. Quentin takes it all out to place on the counter, setting a baking pan on the stove. He cuts the potatoes first, starting them in a pan of salted water.

"He's always been there," Julia says, "and that meant I took him for granted. That's why it was such a slap in the face. How did you know you could be together?"

"It's all very U-Haul on the second date," Eliot says. "We started talking, and I didn't want to stop. I told you that. But what I didn't say was how he looked at me."

That's interesting. Quentin busies himself with making a spice rub and listens.

"Quentin might as well have a billboard for a face," Julia says. "But how?"

"He made me feel like I was interesting." Eliot leans over and pours a little more wine in Julia's glass. "I'm used to being looked at. I'm used to being hit on. But Quentin listened to me, and he talked to me about real things, even though I could see he was interested. He wasn't playing a game—and I liked that better than any pickup artist move he could have pulled."

Wow. Quentin ducks his head and concentrates on his knife handling. 

"God, that's so sweet," Julia says. 

The trimmed chops rest on a plate covered in spice rub. Quentin throws the fat scraps in a skillet, letting the fat melt with a little butter before he tosses the beans in it, lining them up on the roasting pan.

Quentin's learned knife skills, sauce techniques, cooking methods, but the most important one is timing. The potatoes are ready to get bathed in butter and take their place in the pan. The bread's ready to come out when he's finished loading the dishwasher. In go the veggies, and Quentin turns to the window to vent some of the heat out. 

The moth is on the kitchen window.

Quentin blinks at it. It's unmistakable—as big as his hand, the wings long and narrow, with cyan blue eyes on the lower wings. He could look in a hundred identification books and never find one listed.

"Hey," he says to the moth. "Are you…following me?"

"What's that?" Julia asks. "Oh shit, Q, we never asked if you wanted help."

"I've got it under control," Quentin says.

The moth is gone.

"The least we could do is keep you company while you toil in the kitchen," Eliot says. "How the hell is the kitchen not a disaster?"

Q points. "I'm filling the dishwasher as I go."

"Why didn't I ever think of that?" Eliot says. "I also adore him because he's so clever."

Quentin can't help smiling at that. "Did you get everything worked out?"

"I get you for Thanksgiving, Eliot has you for Christmas, and New Years Eve is shared," Julia says.

"We're not braiding each other's hair yet, but it'll be fine," Eliot says.

"Good. I'm glad. And I just remembered, I forgot half my stuff here. Do you know where my copies of my wine notebooks are?"

"I think I boxed them and put them in your closet," Julia says. "Eliot, will you excuse us for a minute?"

"Sure. Can I do anything?"

"I will be right back," Quentin says. "You could slice yourself a little bread?"

"The siren call of carbohydrates," Eliot sighs. "Get back here before I eat half the loaf."

Quentin scoops up his bag on the way to his bedroom. "Here. These are the notes. And this—"

He pulls out a pill bottle. "Soil from Brakebills."

"Okay," Julia says. "Did you bring a—wait." She ducks into the bathroom, opening drawers and cabinets. She comes back out with a syringe.

"What's that for?"

"I need some of your blood."

"What? No! What for?"

"I had another dream. 'The blood of cold water is the key.' I mean prophecies don't get any more on the nose than that. I need your blood for the spell."

"Can't you just swab my mouth for DNA?"

"Oh don't be such a baby." Julia snatches at Quentin's hand. "It's just a little poke—"

"Julia!"

"I need this," Julia whispers. "You said you'd help me and you're doing a lot but when you're an Onieromancer and your dream guide says you need blood, then you get some. It's not like I need your heart."

"It'll hurt."

"You are a baby," she huffs, and she snatches Quentin's hand, jabbing the needle into his ring finger before he can flinch.

"Ow!"

Julia squeezes his finger, and the pressure of trapped blood makes it hot. She holds his hand over a square of paper, counting one, two, three before she lets his hand go.

A flash of blue on the window turns his head, but nothing flutters outside it.

"There. I'll get you a band aid—"

"Is everything okay?" Eliot asks, opening the door and poking his head through.

"Papercut," Eliot says. "I think my wine journals are mad at me."

Eliot takes the dressings away from Julia and does the tending himself, wrapping a bandage over his finger and then kissing it better. "Can you still cook?"

"Yeah," Quentin says. "I'm not left handed."

He looks back at the bedspread. The bloodied paper is gone.

 

21\. Blood and protection

 

They're not braiding each other's hair, but Eliot's charming and Julia's cordial and Quentin can breathe, at least. Eliot closes his eyes and does a happy dance in his chair at the first bite of his chop, and tells a story of how he's writing a research paper on the Wooing of Etain, a woman so beautiful a king did heroic tasks and paid a dowry of her weight in gold and silver to marry her, but she was also desired by the High King of Ireland, and even a god—

"And she's nothing but a prize," Eliot says. "Fought over, but given no voice of her own."

Julia nods. "Ugh. Centuries of objectification."

"I didn't really recognize the sexism when I first got into it," Eliot says. "But what am I gonna do, get an MFA?"

They chat like that, and Quentin keeps his mouth shut. Julia thinks she's lying to Eliot, and Eliot is lying right back. His finger throbs where Julia stabbed him, and it's about time to go home.

"I'm sticking you with the dishes," Quentin says. "We have to get back to Cambridge."

"Half the dishes are in the machine," Julia says. "Did you drive down in that slick little Audi again?"

"A different car this time," Eliot says. "Father owns a car dealership. I'm glad we came. It was a lovely time."

Julia smiles, hugs Quentin, and waves until the staircase hides them. Eliot holds his hand on the short walk back to the portal on west 46th, activating it before plunging through.

A sliver of a moon floats just over the main building, sinking behind the roof. Eliot ignores it. "Quentin."

There's an edge to Eliot's voice. "Yes?"

Eliot stops, turning to stare Quentin down. "That wasn't a papercut. It was a puncture."

"It was," Quentin says. "But I had to lie. Julia would have expected me to lie. I couldn't say, 'Julia needs my blood for the spell because the dream guide told her that—'"

"You gave her blood for a _spell?"_ Eliot's voice rises on the final words. "Q! I know you don't know much about magic yet, but when in any movie, TV show, or horror novel about magic or witchcraft has using blood in a spell ever turned out fine?"

"I know. It's sympathetic attraction," Quentin says. "Maybe she's right. Maybe reverse engineering Krasnikov portals isn't the way to go. I mean they have security on them, right? Otherwise anyone who knew where an anchor was could get into Brakebills at any time."

"You're right," Eliot says. "You can come and go because your essence is keyed to the wards. They recognize you, and so you can come through."

"How do they do that?"

"The medical exam," Eliot says promptly, and then drops his chin. "They add your blood to the sigil that fuels the wards."

"There. See? Using blood in a spell that's totally fine."

Are they having a fight? Quentin trembles. He has to keep this calm. They're discussing. They're not fighting. Eliot's just worried.

And Eliot's not impressed by his point about blood magic. "The spell is performed by Master Magicians who know what they're doing, not some fledgling who's one step shy of becoming a hedge."

"A what?"

"A hedge witch. Those who didn't get found by any of the schools. Those who were expelled. Those who failed the entrance exam and broke through the mind wipe later," Eliot says. "They gather in groups, fighting over what little magic they have. Hedges can't be trusted, Q. They're too desperate."

Quentin can't blame them. To come close to magic, and then have it taken away--if that happened to him, he'd search for as long as he lives. But that's not what's happening here. "Julia's not a hedge."

"I know. So whatever she means to do to convince the Dean to let her back in, she had better do it fast before she falls in with the wrong sort. And if she uses your blood to hurt you—"

"She wouldn't ever do that," Quentin says. "If she needs it, it wouldn't be something that would hurt me."

"Okay. You're sure. And I trust you." Eliot takes Quentin's hand. "But don't let anyone take your blood for a spell unless you know you can trust them."

"I can trust Julia."

"Okay." Eliot wraps his arms around Quentin. "You know her. I don't. I believe you."

Quentin hugs back. Not a fight. Eliot's just worried. And he believes Quentin. Everything is fine, and Quentin holds him tight, not wanting to let go. "Thank you."

Eliot kisses the top of Quentin's head. "You said you knew what you wanted to do tonight. Is it still on the table?"

"I hope so," Quentin says. "If you don't mind."

"I'm sure I don't," Eliot replies. "What do you want?"

"I want some of that prep you were talking about," Quentin says. "Does that sound good to you?"

"Yes."

Eliot walks faster.


	8. twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four

22\. Alice Quinn Arrives

 

Quentin wakes up before Eliot does, and somebody's burning the bacon. He grabs a robe off the hook on the door, belting it shut as he thumps down the stairs.

Nobody's in the kitchen. Quentin rescues bacon, turns down the heat on an empty, too hot pan, and double checks the oven. 

"Has this oven been on all night?" Quentin yells. "Who's cooking this?"

"I'll be right there!" Margo yells from the powder room just off the kitchen. "I had an eyelash emergency."

"You were going to have a bacon emergency in a minute," Quentin grumbles. 

Margo comes out, her eyelashes put to rights. She scoops Quentin into a hug and leaves a siren-red smoochy lip print on his cheek. "Thank you, hon. And don't you look well-laid lately!"

Quentin smiles and drains the grill pan to lay out more bacon. "Yes. Yes, I am."

Margo squishes him a little. "Maybe a little fast to jump into bed, I thought you had it in you to hold out for another week, but if it's working out for you—"

"Hello?"

Their heads swivel around at the sound of the front door creaking open. Alice wrestles a pair of enormous rolling suitcases into the front hall. "Hello?"

"Hi, Alice," Quentin waves a pair of tongs in greeting. "Have you had breakfast?"

"You live in the physical kids cottage?" Alice asks. She abandons the suitcases and rushes into the kitchen, skidding to a stop, staring at Quentin in wide-eyed surprise. "You wear flowered silk dressing robes?"

"Not usually," Quentin says. "I smelled the bacon burning."

"Quentin sort of lives here," Margo ruffles his hair and pulls down coffee mugs. "Do you drink coffee, Alice?"

Alice takes another step inside the kitchen. "You know my name."

"Everyone knows your name. You're the most talented student Brakebills has seen in years. And your family—"

"I'm trying to succeed on my own merits." Alice shifts her weight to one foot and looks down.

"Okay. Subject closed," Margo says. "You're Alice Quinn, physical kid. What can you do, by the way?"

"Phosphoromancy," Alice says. "You?"

Margo shrugs. "I keep the drinks cold."

Alice stares at Quentin's face. "Cryomancy."

Oh. Right. Lipstick on his cheek. The coffee urn gives one last burp, and a brass bell chimes. Margo's at the spigot one second later, pouring herself the first cup. "So are you coming to Ibiza, Quentin?"

"Ibiza?" Quentin asks, confused.

"Ibiza?" Alice asks, and Quentin glances her way when he hears the note of anxiety in her voice. "To the magician's orgy?"

"About Ibiza, Margo." Eliot sails into the kitchen, a crimson silk robe flowing from his shoulders, exposing a shirtless chest and matching silk pajama pants. "It isn't the best vacation spot for dewy eyed newbies. Quentin might be a little overwhelmed." 

Margo pouts. "You're ditching me."

"Sorry." He takes an empty coffee mug and wraps Quentin in a one-armed hug, kissing the un-marked cheek. "But if Q wants to get away this weekend, I know where."

"Where?" Quentin asks. "Oh wait. Eliot, Alice is a phosporomancer and so she's living here. Alice, this is—"

"Your boyfriend," Alice says.

Eliot pours himself a coffee. "That's me. Eliot Waugh." He sticks out one hand to shake. "You're in fundamentals class with Quentin."

Somebody called Eliot Quentin's boyfriend, and Eliot just said yes. It spreads warmth over his skin, but Alice's brave smile hurts his heart a little. 

"I am," Alice says, "But we don't really know each other."

"Well! Come and have breakfast. No, wait. You want to claim a room. There's a nice big one on the second floor, facing south. Margo, will you show her?"

Margo hastily smiles and hops off the counter. "Good idea. The room is pretty nice. It gets a lot of sun, and—"

Margo's voice fades as they tromp up the stairs to get Alice settled in. Quentin shoves the hot, shallow pan off the burner to favor a deeper model. "Everyone's getting scrambled. I only short order eggs for two. That's my limit."

"Fair," Eliot says. "You totally got conned. It's Margo's turn to cook."

"She was gonna burn the bacon." 

"God, you're adorable." Eliot watches Quinn beat the eggs and pour them into a frothy pool of melted butter. "So, Alice."

"She's my study buddy, or is gonna be. We're taking the probability magic class together—"

"She likes you."

"What? Yeah, I guess." Quentin flips the bacon. "Where did you want to go for the weekend?"

"No, I mean she's interested in you. And you had no clue at all, did you?"

"What?" Quentin stares at Eliot. Did he hear that right? "She does?"

"Yes. Now you—" he looks up at the sound of heavy, running footsteps pounding along the ceiling before they thump down the stairs. Alice Quinn all but runs out of the cottage, leaving a slammed door behind her. 

Margo follows much more quietly. "She asked me when you two hooked up. I think she missed the love bus."

Oh shit. Quentin knows that hot, embarrassed, self hating feeling of having the hopes of dating someone dashed. He's never been the one doing the disappointing, though. "I need to talk to her. Shit. I didn't know."

"After breakfast," Margo says. "Thanks for cooking, by the way. You didn't have to do that."

 

23\. The breathtaking speed of abandonment

 

Everything's fine when Quentin climbs the stairs to Eliot's room to gather his clothes and dress. Well. Fine, if he doesn't count Alice running out of the cottage to flee him and Eliot kissing in the kitchen. He has to go back to his dorm and change—maybe he should ask Eliot if— 

Voices, raised in the kitchen. Loud enough to know it's an argument; not loud enough to make out what the fighting is about. A minute later the door swings open, and Eliot comes in. Quentin steps into his jeans and jumps while pulling them up. "Hey. Everything okay?"

Eliot flicks a glance at him. "It's always okay. Margo and I have differences of opinion. We yell because we love."

Quentin grew up with parents who yelled because they didn't love. Not any more. It puts a scared little shudder in his belly. "I guess she's upset because you bailed on Ibiza. I could tell her I'm sorry, if it'll help."

"That's sweet, but I don't think you need to do that." Eliot pulls a pair of pale khakis out of a trouser press. "And I think maybe—"

"I was thinking," Quentin says, then stops himself. "Sorry."

A pink shirt joins the khaki pants. "No, go ahead."

"Okay. Maybe I should bring an extra set of clothes here, so I'm not re-wearing stuff."

"Like, you want a drawer? A drawer for your clothes."

"Yeah," Quentin says. "You could have one too, when I figure out where the hell I belong. Though maybe you should have a piece of the closet, what do you think?"

"I'd have to do a konmari on my dressers."

"That's the spark joy thing, right? From the book?" Quentin can't stop talking. He's doing that train crash thing, who the fuck knows why--why? Why is it hard to breathe, why is he tensing up like something's wrong, nothing's wrong—"Margo did that to me. When she helped me. With my clothes." Fuck. Stop. Stop talking.

But Eliot looks...veiled. Like there's a layer of something hiding his face. "Quentin, I made a decision while talking to Margo and you should know about it," Eliot says. 

Oh no. No. Anxiety, please fuck off, please. "What?"

"I'm going to Ibiza with Margo for the weekend."

Quentin stops. "What?"

"I made a promise," Eliot says. He turns his back and hangs his robe on one of the hooks on the door. "Margo planned the whole thing assuming I'd be there, and I can't let her down."

He says, _"I'm going to Ibiza."_ Not _"We're going to Ibiza."_ Eliot's going to Ibiza, and Quentin's not invited. He's going to a magician's resort that makes Hedonism look like a knitting circle, and Quentin's not invited.

Eliot's going to get drunk. Do astonishing amounts of drugs. Join an in-progress orgy and not even know anybody's name, and he's going to leave Quentin behind.

"Eliot." Quentin doesn't want to say it. He's sick inside, sick and hollow and he doesn't want to say it don't say it don't— 

"Are you breaking up with me?"

Eliot busies himself with picking a tie. "It hasn't even been a week, Quentin. I don't think there's anything to break yet."

There is. There is. It's breaking right now. 

"Did I do something wrong?"

"It's just for the weekend," Eliot continues. "I'll see you on Monday. Well. Tuesday. Monday's recovery appointments with the Healers. Tuesday's the survivor's party. You should come."

This—how is this happening?

"We'll be leaving in the middle of the night. Time zones," Eliot says. "I have to pack."

Quentin doesn't say a word. He walks out of Eliot's bedroom, down the stairs and out of the physical kids cottage, walking fast toward the dorms with an autumn wind stinging his eyes.

#

Penny's gone. His bed is bare of bedding, his closet's empty, all his grooming stuff crowding half the vanity is gone. There's only a note, lying on Quentin's neatly made bed:

_"Hey Q,_

_Moved into the Patchouli Palace. I wasn't keen on it until the tour guide showed the bedrooms. Get this. They're so heavily shielded I can't hear a fuckin' thing. Nobody's thoughts but my own. First time in years. I might never come out and hear you thinking another Taylor Swift song again. Kidding! I'll see you in class, man. And if I'm right about you, maybe you'll be moving in soon too. I left you the iPod. Listen and learn._

_Penny"_

Quentin's heart aches so much. He wasn't running here to tell Penny, it's just—he said he'd buy the ice cream. 

He sits down on the bed, hugging himself around the middle. He hurts and he smells and he wants this all to be a dream, please be a bad dream, please wake up and tell Eliot. He'll hold Quentin, and kiss him, and tell him something true, and it'll just be a dream.

Eliot gone, Alice gone, Penny gone—there isn't anyone left. Not until Julia gets here.

Julia will come. She has to come soon. All he has to do is hold on. And he can't miss fundamentals—he has to help her catch up. Maybe she'll come tomorrow. Maybe she'll come today.

He can call her. And with that thought Quentin takes off his clothes and manages to shower without shedding a tear, and forgets the talisman when he walks out of his dorm to go to class.

 

24\. The man with no face

 

Alice isn't there. Penny isn't there. Kady—he can't dump this on Kady. They don't even know each other. Just listen. Take notes. Quentin pulls Eliot's pen out of the bag and he almost loses it right there, but he holds it together, writing in that half print, half cursive he uses when he's in a hurry. He'll have to re-do these notes to make them tidy. 

His hand cramps thirty minutes into the class. His wrist aches. He writes through it. It's something to focus on, this pain, the pain that only hurts the body. He flees into it, hides in the ache and throb of writing down everything in the lecture, so Julia will know what she missed.

It'll be okay. It's been just him and Julia before.

He shakes out his wrist when the class ends two hours later. He has thirty minutes before he needs to return to Pearl Sunderland's office to re-test for a discipline. Maybe he should call Julia. 

He heads out of the building and up the wide pebbly concrete walks, slowing when he sees Eliot, dressed in his prep school best—a knitted vest in black with white striped trim over a pink shirt, light beige khakis, ray-bans, and penny loafers on bare feet. He's talking to Dean Fogg, who looks like he ran out of fucks for this conversation ten minutes ago.

Something hot drips from the top of Quentin's head. He's dizzy, all of a sudden; the world tilts and jerks before his eyes. He wants to throw up, but the hollow roaring in his ears makes him want to sit down somewhere and put his head between his knees. 

But he doesn't do that. He lurches toward Eliot. Who cares what Dean Fogg will think? He was speechless when Eliot dumped him three hours ago. He's had plenty of time to think about what to say now.

"Eliot," Quentin says. "Eliot, I have things to say to you."

Eliot's back stiffens. He turns to look over his shoulder, then turns completely, his mouth open in dismay. "Quentin? Are you all right? Are you drunk?"

"I feel like shit. Because of you. Because of your bullshit cowardly…bullshit," Quentin says. "You're not going to Ibiza because you promised Margo. That's crap."

"Quentin, you need to sit down. There's something wrong with you," Eliot says. "You're really sick."

"He's not sick," Dean Fogg says. "He's under magical attack. Someone's leeching him."

Eliot's jaw drops open. "Who?"

And that's when Quentin starts to feel really awful. His knees buckle; he pitches forward, and Eliot steps in to catch him in his arms.

"Get off me," he tries to say, but he's cold now, so cold he should be shivering, and his veins drip icewater into the ground.

A patch of the air turns the color of an old-fashioned television, tuned to a dead channel. The swarming insect portal takes shape—a woman's form stretches the distortion like a membrane until it breaks, and Julia Wicker steps out.

Julia. She's here. She made it.

"Dean Fogg," she says, her voice ringing, "I claim the right of presence."

Dean Fogg's mouth stretches in displeasure. "There's no such thing. What have you done, girl?"

"I have proven my skill at magic before the end of seven days. I demand my place at Brakebills."

Behind her, a moth flies out of the portal, blue-eyed wings shining.

Dean Fogg squints at it, moving his fingers in a tut that ends in the shape of shooting a gun. The moth falls to the pavement.

Ten more moths fly through the portal, come to the first one's funeral.

"Get Quentin out of here," Fogg says. "Run."

But Quentin can't run anywhere. He's too weak to do anything but watch the portal spit out a cloud of moths, flying around the head of a man in a brown Oxford suit and shiny shoes. Black clouds slide across the sky, blocking the light of the sun, extinguishing a little of its hope from the world.

Julia's frozen in horror, watching the man as awful recognition slides across her face. The man walks past her as if she's not important; simply a tool to be discarded when its usefulness is done. She rushes after him; a complex, one handed gesture drops her to the ground like a rock.

"No. Julia." The attempt comes out as a gutteral babble. Eliot hitches Quentin's weight against his body; he puts out his hand as if that one bare arm could defend them both.

"Don't," Quentin tries to say. Drool spills from his lips. All he can do is watch.

It's impossible to look at the man's face. The moths hide it; trying to see past them to the face beneath is like gazing upon the deepest horror. Quentin's ears roar with the flutter of a thousand wings as the man turns to face him, so weak Eliot has to hold him upright.

"Quentin Coldwater," the man with no face says. "There you are."

He reaches out and pulls as Eliot shouts something in a language he doesn't understand, and a transparent, shining shield spins from his fingers.

Outside his body, Eliot feels something part, sliced by the keenest of blades. Sensation snaps back to his flesh; a rubber band stretches, then flies back into shape. It's overwhelming. The pain screams; a hundred voices howling a threnody--and then go quiet as Quentin falls into velvety, silent black.

 

END OF ACT ONE


	9. Act Two: twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven

25\. Triple layered hexagonal tessellation

 

The portal vibrates wildly when Eliot slams his shield into place. Dean Fogg marches toward the monster, casting with all the cold precision of a trained battle mage. The monster flies through the air, falling back into the portal. He vanishes, but Eliot holds on to the shield. He holds on to Quentin as tight as he can, folding him into his arms and the shield he will hold until Judgement Day.

Thought they scattered like goldfish, students come creeping back to the scene of the fight. They stare at Eliot, at Quentin in his arms, and Eliot holds the shield, watching the portal. He could come back. He could come back and finish Quentin and then Eliot can't take it back, can't get over being a coward— 

"It's over, Eliot." Dean Fogg lays a hand on his arm. It's the first time the Dean has ever touched him. "Let him go."

"No." Eliot's surprised at how calmly it comes out. He holds Quentin, who's so pale, his lips blue around the mouth, his eyes shadowed with violet. Quentin's heart beats. He breathes. But it's so feeble, so fluttering and uncertain Eliot's fear surges with every too-slow rise of his chest.

All the moths are gone. The monstrous man with no face is gone, knocked back through the portal with a force ram. All that remains is Julia, crumpled on the ground, and Quentin, an inch away from death.

"The healers need to take him now, Eliot." Dean Fogg's voice is the gentlest it's ever been. So soft it makes Eliot's eyes burn with tears. _Don't pity me. Don't._

"He's still alive. I need to protect him."

"I know he's still alive. That's why the healers—"

He doesn't understand. "I can't let the shield down," Eliot says. "That thing will find him if I let go—I have to touch him. The shield will break if I stop. Don't make me stop."

"All right," Fogg says. "You're part of his team now. I'll get a guardian to consult with you, so you can transfer the protections safely. Can you walk?"

A hundred miles, if he had to. 

Eliot gathers Quentin in his arms and walks into the cool, dim hush of the infirmary. The healers stand back as Eliot sets him on a narrow gurney and drags his hands down Quentin's body to stand at the foot of the bed, holding Quentin's ankles.

"This is as out of the way as I get," Eliot says. "Help him."

Four healers gather around Quentin's body. They take his vitals; they delve his body with magical diagnosis spells. They let a trainee set up a central line with saline; one doctor cuts away his clothes and inserts whisker-thin acupuncture needles into his skin while another lays flat, polished crystals on and around his body. 

The woman standing at Quentin's head shines a light in one eye, then the other. Eliot smells burning incense; a light spray of salt arcs across Quentin's ankles.

Every move the healers make tears a new hole in Eliot. He knows enough to recognize some of the techniques they're using. No one needs to tell him that you only do meridian work with crystal resonance and traditional western medicine all at the same time when a magician's magical body is compromised.

But how bad is the rest? "His life force was drained," he says. "The spell used it to form."

Someone answers him. "We can replenish that gradually. IV for fluids; NG tube for nutrition. We have to keep an eye on organ function, but that's not the problem."

No. That problem would be easy. A student fresh out of med school in their first year in the healing program could take care of that. This is worse; more tricky, more difficult. "The problem is his magic."

The healer glances at him, and the scared pinch around her eyes tells him the worst. "He had almost every speck of it drained from him. We're rebuilding from crumbs. There's no telling how much he'll get back, but we're doing everything we can."

Fuck. It isn't fair. Quentin loves magic more than anyone he's ever met. He can't lose it. He can't. "What can I do?"

"Hang tight until the guardian gets here," the healer says. "Your shield cut the connection between him and whatever drained his magic; if you'd been a second slower, he would have burnt out."

"Oh god." Eliot's chest burns. "Oh god. It's my fault."

"No it isn't. You did exactly what you should have. You saved his life. You saved his magic. He's got a tough road ahead, but if he makes it through the night, he'll make it. Just—don't let go of him until the guardian says you can."

"What's taking them so long?"

"They're dismantling the spell that hedge witch did," the healer says. "Apparently it's a doozy."

Julia. This was her fault as much as it was Eliot's. No. _More._ She wove a fucking Krasnikov portal with a _person_ as the anchor. If Quentin had been alone, if he and Dean Fogg hadn't been right there— 

Quentin would be dead. She would have killed him with her hedge witch's desperation to grab for what she shouldn't touch. Desperate enough to do anything, for the chance to return to Brakebills. And she brought that thing, that monster with her. 

Eliot hangs onto Quentin's cold ankles. He's pale and waxy all over, the needles slipped into his skin, the healers casting complex energy work in an attempt to nurse his body back to as much potential as they could manage.

Julia did this to Quentin. He trusted her. He defended her. And Julia was going to pay for what she'd done to the man who was supposed to be her best friend.

To the man who was— 

His fault. His fault, goddamnit. If he dies, if he doesn't come back from this— 

"Eliot." The guardian who approaches Eliot doesn't look like a security guard. He makes eye contact before he comes close. "I'm Nolan."

Quentin's seen this tidy little man walking about the school with his carefully waxed moustache and his off-brand jeans. "You're the head guardian."

"Yeah," Nolan says. "You did a great job. You got to him just in time. You kept him safe. Now I'm going to lay a perpetuating shield on him, and then it'll be safe to let go. Okay? Don't stop what you're doing until I give the okay."

He's being handled. No one is this careful around him. "She tried to build a—"

"We know. We took the spell matrix down. It's safely dismantled, and the hedge witch is in lockdown. It’s all okay. My shield is just a precaution. Something to make sure he's safe."

"Is it all right if I watch?" Eliot says. He'll watch anyway, but asking is polite. So is an excuse. "I wrote a speculative paper on the layering of personal wards, and I'd like to see them spun so I can know what to do better next time."

Nolan takes this seriously, nodding. "Professor Li tells me you have a promising understanding of warding and magical security."

Eliot can't rub away the sinking feeling in his stomach. "He did?"

"Oh yeah," Nolan says. "You drive him to drink sometimes."

Eliot tries to smile it off. "I have a tendency to disappoint those who get a glimpse of my potential."

"And you have a lot of it," Nolan says, spinning his magic in threads as thing and strong as spider-silk. "Li says if you handed in your assignments on time, you'd probably be his best student. And I gotta tell you, if you did all that—"

He waves his hand at the polygonal matrix of magic protecting Quentin from death and burnout. "Hexagonal tripled structure, melding physical, magical, and psychic shielding in a split second? You don't just have potential. You're genuinely good."

He can't take compliments right now. He doesn't deserve praise. "Thanks."

"You saved Quentin Coldwater's life," Nolan says. "And I know you don't want to be recruited right now, you've got other things on your mind—"

"I do."

"--But you could do a lot with talent like that. I'd like it if you felt you could discuss the field with me, when this is all over."

What was this? "Okay."

"Sorry," Nolan says. "I can get a bit chatty when I meet a colleague. Have a look at what I did, and tell me if you can trust it with your friend's life."

"Really?"

Nolan gestures at him to go ahead. "And hit me with your questions."

Eliot examines the shield over Quentin Coldwater. "You used a double reflective layer. I should have done that."

"You didn't have time," Nolan says.

Eliot grunts in response. He pores over every facet of the shield woven around Quentin. There are things he would have done differently, but it's solid, reliable work. "It's good," he decides. "I can let go."

He releases the shield with an anxious plummeting in his middle. The shield unravels like a sweater with a pulled thread; he lets the energy sink under Quentin's skin, trying to give him back the magic he nearly lost. 

One of the healers looks up and him and smiles. "We'll take good care of him. Go find something to eat, somewhere to rest, and somebody to talk to. Then you can come back to see how he's doing."

"Thank you," Eliot says. "Thank you for helping him. Thank you for—"

"Hey. It's what we do," Nolan says. "But come with me. I'll make sure you eat. And then the Dean wants to talk to you."

Eliot nods. "Can I come back here after?"

"I'm sure you can," Nolan says. "The Dean just needs information." 

Eliot lets the head of security walk him out of the infirmary.

 

26\. Stained by wickedness

 

"I knew. Not everything. But I knew enough." Eliot says it before he closes the door. "I knew Julia was incorrectly wiped. I knew she was trying to get back into Brakebills. I took Quentin to Manhattan twice to see her—"

"Sit down, Mr. Waugh."

It's the sound of the fireplace crackling merrily behind the Dean that seems so wrong. Eliot takes a hesitant step to the chair in front of Fogg's desk; a large scale sandbox illusion takes up most of the surface space. 

It's a model of Brakebills. People walk along the hallways of the buildings and on the walks outside. A miniature Alice Quinn stands in front of the Van Pelt Fountain; her tiny lips move as if she's singing something. Eliot seeks out the infirmary. Quentin lies there, armored in layers of protection spells and healing webs. Someone takes his vitals, but the gang of healers are gone.

Quentin's stable. They wouldn't leave him alone if he wasn't. Eliot looks for Margo, and a sudden thought makes him regard Dean Fogg.

"Did you cast this spell?"

"This spell is as old as Brakebills itself. The original Headmaster had to administer a co-ed campus, and he was deeply concerned with the moral fiber of the students."

Eliot recalls some of the things he's gotten up to all over campus. "Big Brother."

"It sees you when you're sleeping; it knows when you're awake," Dean Fogg says. He picks up a bottle of whiskey and pours two generous glasses. "Thought you could use a drink."

Whiskey's not really Eliot's brand, but he knows a big, smoky scotch when he smells one. "I'm not going to appreciate it as much as it deserves, but—"

He takes the shot in one glug, his tongue barely getting to know the salt-water and peat that slides down his throat. The liquid warms his heart as it pools in his stomach; it's psychological, but he already feels steadier. "Thank you."

"Now, you can finish explaining how the first year student assigned to your care wound up as an anchor for a crude but very innovative portal spell." Dean Fogg leans back in his chair. "Start anywhere. If I want clarification, I'll ask."

"Why wasn't Julia admitted to Brakebills?"

"She didn't pass the test."

"But Quentin did. Even though he couldn't cast, and Julia could."

That information makes Fogg cock his head. "How do you know that?"

"Quentin told me. He confessed everything the first time I took him to see her."

"When was that?"

"Two days ago."

"Our library records show that Quentin did extensive research on portal spells, particularly the Krasnikov technique, and sympathetic magic. You took Quentin to Manhattan on the 15th and the 16th of September. Is that correct?"

"Yes," Eliot says. 

"So she worked that out in two days," Fogg says. 

"Don't tell me you're impressed." Eliot's appalled. "She nearly killed him. He almost burnt out. She let a monster from Fillory into the campus—"

"How did you know," Dean Fogg asks, "that the Beast was from Fillory?"

Eliot startles, and then goes very still as fear creeps over him. "I did a remote viewing spell to impress Quentin. And he loves the books, so I thought I'd show him—"

"You know Fillory is real?"

Eliot stares back. "All the kids know Fillory is real. Some of the ur-nerds debate over whether the author was a Traveller, and that's how he knew—"

"If only he had been a Traveller," Fogg says, his voice heavy. "When you did the viewing, did you see the Beast?"

"No," Eliot says. "But a moth flew out of the mirror where I'd cast the spell. A dusty brown moth with bright blue eyes on its hind wings. It flew out the window and I never saw it again. Until the moths that came through with the Beast."

Fogg took a big sip of his scotch. "So two of them were freed. But what happened to—"

"Did I do something?" Eliot says. "Did I make the wards weaker because I did that spell?"

"If all the students in Brakebills know about Fillory, it was only a matter of time before one of them did it."

"Then it is my fault." Eliot pushes his clenched fist against his mouth. _Don't cry. Don't cry. You don't deserve to cry about this. You don't get to cry about being stained by wickedness._

"I do not wish to apportion much of the blame to you, Mr. Waugh. But you didn't tell me that Julia Wicker's memory hadn't been properly wiped. You didn't tell me that she planned to return to Brakebills. You didn't tell me that she convinced Quentin to give her a sample of his blood. If I had known any one of those things, I could have prevented this."

The realization crushes his chest. "So I nearly killed Quentin. I nearly cost him his magic, because I wouldn't rat him out to the Man."

"But you weren't the one to cast the spell," Fogg says. "Julia Wicker did that. With almost no knowledge or experience with magic, she designed a successful, complex spell with little more than a piece of the Beast's moth-mind influencing her."

"Influencing her?" Eliot leans forward, his fists on his knees. "She nearly killed her best friend, and you're impressed by her _talent?"_

"I understand that Quentin is very special to you," Dean Fogg says. "And as such, you cannot be expected to appreciate Ms. Wicker's potential—"

"Don't talk to me about her potential! She has to pay for what she did to Quentin! I want her to look me in the eye when I tell her exactly how thin a thread Quentin's life is hanging from! I want her to pay," Eliot says. "She has to pay for what she did. Where is she?"

"I'm not going to tell you that."

"Fine."

Eliot rises to his feet, passing his hands over the illusion model. Julia Wicker's figure shines more brightly than the others, her features more detailed. She's on her knees in an empty, heavily warded room. She throws her head back in a scream; she pounds her fists on her thighs, her chest, the unforgiving floor as she falls forward, her whole body shaking with sobs.

No. She doesn't get to cry. She doesn't deserve to cry about this. She doesn't get to cry about being stained by wickedness.

"Eliot. The situation is in hand. We have isolated her. She can't hurt anyone. Eliot!"

The door slams behind Eliot as he leaves to find Julia Wicker. 

 

27\. Mercy, severity, and wisdom

 

Dean Fogg follows him through the halls and stairways, but Eliot shrugs him off every time he attempts to take his arm and stop him. A pair of large steel doors block the way to the room where they're holding Julia; frenzied, keening wails sound even through the thick barrier. 

"Quentin!" Julia screams, from behind the doors. "Quentin!" 

When he has to strain to hear the ragged sobs, punctuated by thumps, it makes his insides wrench.

"Just what do you hope to accomplish by going in there?" Dean Fogg asks. "What do you want the outcome to be?"

"She needs to pay for what she's done."

"Ah," Dean Fogg says. "And you're her judge."

"Well, you don't seem to be up to the job," Eliot growls.

"All right. Since I'm inadequate, Julia Wicker's fate is now up to you. I wished to explore the possibility of her studying at Brakebills—"

"You can't be serious! After what she did to Quentin?"

"She put the entire school, and almost certainly this entire world in danger with her actions," Dean Fogg says.

"And you want to _teach_ her?"

"The other option is to wipe her memory," Dean Fogg says. "It will take this time; the protection she had against my last attempt due to the influence of the mind-moth is now gone. She will no longer remember anything about Brakebills, or magic. She will be sent home with the memory of taking a trip to Hawaii for a serenity retreat after the disappointment of Quentin attending Harvard instead of Yale. She will never touch magic again, and Quentin will fade in importance from her mind in time. And you, Eliot Waugh, get to choose."

"I choose mindwipe." Having Julia here--having her study here? Seeing her around campus--God, what if her Discipline was Physical? The idea made him want to break something.

"After you spend ten minutes with her. She can't hurt you with magic. You can't hurt her, either. That room is a null zone. No magic gets in; no magic gets out."

"Deal. And in ten minutes you'll wipe her and she will never touch magic again. Let me in."

Elliot strides into the clean room. It's--strange. It feels muffled, as if the walls were soundproof. Dull, as if a finely tuned sense of his is gone. Julia's screaming again, bashing her fists into the floor in front of her, a smear of something the object of her violence. She lifts her bruised hands to cover her face as she sobs, and Eliot catches the fluttering movement of a pulverised wing, as if a breeze had caught it. But when it moves again, Eliot spins away, trying to keep from vomiting.

That crushed, broken thing is a Fillorian moth. And it's still moving, because it's still alive.

Julia lowers her hands, her breaths ragged. Her eyes are so red, her eyelids swollen, her fingernails ragged and broken to the quick. Her voice whistles through a voice gone raw, but she looks at Eliot with dread and hope in her eyes.

"Quentin. Is he still alive? Is he okay? Oh god please Quentin please—"

"He's alive," Eliot says.

Julia sobs again, but this time with relief. No. She doesn't get to do that. She doesn't get to feel that. "He's unconscious. Your spell drained his life force. It leeched his magic."

"No," Julia says. "He has to be okay, he has to be okay."

Eliot tells her the rest, continuing as if she hadn't said anything. "No one knows when--or if--he'll wake up. And if he does, no one knows how much magic he'll have. If he has any."

"No," Julia says, her voice shaking. "No. No no no no no no—"

She hits her thighs, her fists connecting with a meaty slap. She hits her chest--literally beating her breast in grief. Eliot's never seen anyone so abjected, so broken by pain. She pulls on her hair and a chunk rips free, making him clutch his own scalp in sympathetic response. But anger pools deep inside him. Damnit, she did this. She hurt Quentin.

"I could see everything," she says, in her ragged, broken voice. "I could see and hear everything, but it was like I was just riding inside my own body, hearing myself speak. I thought it was depersonalization. I thought about seeing a shrink, but what could I say? 'I failed a test at a magic university, and the dreams are helping me find a way back if I just get some of my best friend's blood?' They would have locked me up--I should have gone. I should have—have—"

The moth strains to raise a tattered wing. Eliot grabs Julia's wrists before she can pummel it. She keens again, the sound high and devastated, fading into airlessness. 

"Where did the moth come from?"

"It was--it was in my mouth," Julia says. "They brought me in here and I started choking and it--crawled out of my mouth and it won't fucking _die."_

He's split, the cut neatly bisecting his thoughts. She nearly killed Quentin. But she was a victim of that thing, the Beast, the monster in Fillory. She wasn't in control. But Quentin's lying unconscious in the infirmary. Quentin's barely alive; the healers can’t even say if he's going to wake up in the morning.

Split. And Eliot understands, finally, what Dean Fogg wanted him to see.

He lets her go and walks out of the clean room, down to the end of the hall where Dean Fogg waits for him.

"It has only been five minutes," the Dean says.

"Don't wipe her," Eliot says.

"Why?"

"Three reasons." Eliot holds up one finger. "One. She was under the influence of the Beast of Fillory when she hatched her plan to get back into Brakebills. She wasn't in control."

Dean Fogg nods. "And two?"

He continues the count on his fingers, even though it's just an affectation. "Wiping her would protect her from what she's feeling right now. It would erase everything she did; it would let her off the hook. I am not going to be the one to do that."

"Mercy and severity in equal measure," Dean Fogg says. "And three?"

Eliot drops his hand to his side. "I don't have the strongest right to judge her. Quentin does. He's the victim. His need for justice is what matters here. Not mine."

"And wisdom. You are far more than the image you cultivate would lead people to believe."

"Not interested in a discussion of my potential," Eliot says. "I want to sit with Quentin. Can I do that?"

"You can," Dean Fogg says. "And I imagine you won't go home and rest as you should. I'll tell the staff to bring you meals and a cot."


	10. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty

28\. A gloomy nature

 

Too many people stop Eliot in their hunt for gossip. Some of them have the manners to at least make it look like sympathy, but Eliot nods and tells them nothing. Vultures. Never mind that he would have sent out minions in search of the deets if it hadn't happened to him—that wasn't the point at all.

He stops at the desk and signs in with a careless loop and squiggle, letting himself into the patient room. Someone—a woman—is talking inside. One of the healers?

No. Alice Quinn sits by Quentin's bedside, reading. She balances the book on her knees, one hand free to turn the pages of _The World in the Walls,_ the other held just over Quentin's body, fingers sliding into basic healing tuts. They're tiny, trivial spells, the kind of thing a mother uses on a child's skinned knee.

Blood rushes in Eliot's ears. His hands get hot. The fuck is she doing? 

"Stop."

Alice startles so badly the book slides off her knees. The pages riffle like the flutter of moth's wings. It makes Eliot nauseous. He strides into the room and grabs her by the wrist. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"Helping him." Alice wrenches her hand away. "If you haven't noticed, Quentin is badly hurt."

"You're supposed to be smart, Alice," Eliot says. "We've all heard about how talented you are. Why don't you have the sense to read Quentin's fucking chart?"

"Charts are for healers."

"And so you didn't see that he's under strict rest and observation. Three different healers performed serious magic on him to just get his head above water. Then they stopped. And you never bothered to find out why."

She sticks her chin out and glares. "So they need the help. They need all the help they can get!"

"You high-achievement, book-smart little fool," Eliot says. "Two things you haven't learned about healing magicians. You can't speed up healing to nerve damage, and you can't speed up the replenishment of the magical body."

Alice scoffs. "It's just a minor spell—"

"—He's drained. They have to give him time for his magic to replenish itself. That means not interfering with the coma he's in right now. You could have healed him—and rendered him powerless when he woke up too early."

"Oh god," Alice says. She scrambles out of the chair and backs away from Quentin. "I didn't know. They—they should have put up a sign, or—"

"That's the trouble with everyone telling you that you're the smartest person in the room. You believe it, and then you stop asking questions."

Alice's lip trembles. "Why do you hate me?"

_Because you're smart. Because you've never failed to live up to an expectation in your life. Because when they're done with sex, drugs, and rock and roll Eliots, they settle down with pretty, smart, wife material Alices._

_Because he could have woken up, and you would have been the first face he saw._

"Don't flatter yourself." Eliot looks her up and down. Shining blonde hair. Bangin' trophy body, in spite of the uncomfortably girlish outfits and the stiff, awkward postures. And under those glasses, perfect, symmetrical beauty. "You'd have to be a lot more interesting, first."

Her eyes narrow. "Because alcoholism and good blowjobs are so deep."

Rage spills into his veins. He clenches his fists, leashing the urge to strike out. "I saved his life. And I'm not going to let you destroy his talent with good intentions. Visiting hours are over, Ms. Quinn. I suggest you don't come back."

"You can't make me leave—"

Her eyes widen as the door to Quentin's room swings open, and she rises a few inches above the floor, whisked out of the room against her will. He sets her down gently, but the door shuts on her astonished face, the lock twisting home.

Eliot shakes with the need to break something, make it shatter, to hit, to hurt--but he fights to calm down. He's so petty and small like this. But he can't stop trembling, can't stop the yawning pit of loathing in his stomach.

She's right. He's not that interesting. Eliot Waugh is a beautiful mask, but that's all he is. Sooner or later, everyone figures that out. Quentin would have figured that out. And then when he walked away, it would leave a hole in Eliot that would never fill.

He'll see Quentin through this. He'll keep Quentin safe, no matter what it takes, but when he's ready to get out of that bed, Eliot knows the beautiful mask won't be enough to distract him from the truth.

He turns to Quentin, who hasn't moved an inch. He looks exactly the same way he does when he's sleeping--all the lines of worry, of pensive thought and expression are smooth and quiet. Eliot feels his forehead, examines his color--better than it had been--and bends over to kiss Quentin's forehead.

"I'm sorry you had to hear that," he says to Quentin's peaceful form. "I don't know what you can hear and what you can't, so I'm going to assume you can hear me."

He moves around the bed, bending to pick up the book. Some of the pages are bent, and Eliot tries to put them to rights. "You don't have to wake up yet. You can stay like that while you heal. Your body probably hurts, and magical depletion feels like the flu. Trust me, Q. You want to sleep through it."

He sits on the chair Alice had taken, the vinyl seat still warm from her body. "I'm not sure _Fillory and Further_ is a tasteful choice, considering what happened to you. But you love this book, and maybe we don't have to get into the details of what happened to you right now."

He opens it and holds the book at a distance where he doesn't need his glasses. One hand holds the book; the other rests on Quentin's hospital bed, covering his hand.

_"The Chatwin twins and their only brother had been sent to the countryside,"_ Eliot read, putting all the stagecraft he'd ever learned into his voice. _"From a young age, Martin Chatwin had a gloomy nature, and to combat his melancholy he would lose himself in stories of wonder…"_

 

29\. The boy who was a door

 

A healer wakes Eliot. He raises his head from Quentin's bed and peers at an hour of the morning he doesn't usually see unless he's still up. What time is it?"

"6 A.M. You didn't sleep in the cot."

He hadn't wanted to leave Quentin alone, certain that if he held Quentin's hand morning would come safely. That no one could sneak in and hurt him.

"One of Quentin's visitors was using healing magic on him when I came back here. Can we put up a sign or something?"

The healer writes notes on Quentin's chart. "What kind of magic?"

"Minor stuff. Skinned knees boo-boo level. But still—"

"It had the potential to interfere with Quentin's recovery," the healer says. He reaches out to touch Quentin's forehead, delving his body to check for trouble. "We can put up a sign. Scoot back, get yourself a coffee. I'm going to check his progress. Did he wake up?"

"No. He's been…peaceful." Eliot lets go of Quentin's hand and stretches. "I don't want to leave him alone, but I should change clothes."

"He'll be all right if you leave him for a bit. He made it through the night, and that's a good sign."

Eliot hurries anyway. He grabs a cup of coffee from the nursing station and drinks it while he quick-marches across campus to the cottage. He tiptoes up the stairs to his room, but Margo's door opens almost at the moment he reaches his room.

He stops. "You're not in Ibiza?"

She huffs. "Like I could. How's Quentin? Sit down."

Eliot gestures toward his closet. "I have to change and get back."

"You spent last night sleeping in a chair. That means you need your backbone straightened out—though you needed that before you went full stupid and dumped Quentin." Margo shoves her way into Eliot's room, and there's no arguing with Margo if she's in the mood to fix Eliot's neck.

Eliot straddles the seat he usually piles laundry on. Margo presses her fingertips along the vertebrae in Eliot's neck. "What happened to him?"

"It's a long story."

"Sum it up."

"Quentin's friend failed the entrance exam, got possessed by a moth I freed when I did a spell to impress Quentin, and manipulated Quentin into helping her figure out how to cast a portal spell to Brakebills. Only she used his blood to anchor the other end. That leeched him pretty badly. But when she used the spell, something else came with her."

"Okay. That is some kind of fucked up. So we hate Quentin's friend who nearly killed him?"

"We hate her," Eliot says. "Fogg's talking about her potential and I know she was at the very least influenced by a monster who lives in Fillory—"

"What monster is this?"

"I don't know. A man in a brown suit with a cloud of moths where his head should be," Eliot says. "I've read all the books. I know it's been a long time but the monster's not in them."

"Okay. Maybe they're not in the books because they were supposed to be in the sixth book, the one that disappeared."

Eliot sighs as Margo pinches and lifts, easing sore neck muscles. She isolates his head with her hand cupped around his chin and lifts until he's sitting up as straight as he can, stretching all the way down his spine.

"You read _Fillory and Further._ "

"Of course I did. I didn't go super-nerd, but they were in the library at school. So there are major geeks who know everything about Fillory."

"Quentin's a major geek who knows everything about Fillory."

"Quentin can't help us until he wakes up. We can find out what people know about this sixth book, the monster you saw, and figure out why the fuck it's got a hard on for our boy."

" _Our_ boy?"

"Look. I helped him because you liked him, and I get it. He's not like your usual flavor—"

"Hunky?"

"Disposable."

"Ouch."

"You have a type." Margo presses on Eliot's shoulders, looking for knots. "And Quentin's way off type."

"He's cute," Eliot says. "Even cuter with your expert guidance."

"But he's not…look. Your usual guy is a safe choice, because they're too into themselves to be any kind of a risk. You get together, get off, and get out, no hard feelings. If you recall his name when you run into each other later, he should feel honored."

"It's like you're saying I'm heartless."

Margo ignores that. "And then here comes this guy who doesn't, I mean _does not_ fit your usual criteria. And you don't just flirt with him. You go out of your way to do things that make him happy."

"Giving him that wine was worth it."

"So here's what I think." Margo cradles Eliot's head and gently, slowly tests his range of motion. "I think Quentin is the kind of guy you actually like. The kind of guy you usually avoid. Because he's not a bump genitals I'll call you later type. He falls in love, Eliot. And you want that."

He can't have that. "Can't I just have made a mistake?"

"You did. When you broke his heart. That was a mistake. Into the shower with you." Margo pats his shoulder. "Then you can go back. I'll stop by your classes and get notes on your assigned work."

"You say that like I do homework," Eliot says. "But if you could tell Professor Li that I have questions, that would be great."

Margo ruffles his hair and leaves him to change. 

Eliot's wet-haired when he bounces down the stairs and leaves the cottage, jogging along the paths back to the infirmary.

The healer's not there when he makes it into Quentin's room, but a woman bends over Quentin, delving him. She's no healer—she's outfitted in caramel and pink, softly feminine and a little old-fashioned, and Eliot has never seen her on campus before this.

"Excuse me," Eliot says, projecting his voice to carry across the room. "What are you doing?"

"You're a clever magician if not the most diligent student, Eliot Waugh." Her voice is clear, her accent a perfect, natural example of the Queen's English. "Observe a moment. What am I doing?"

"Delving."

"Delving what? Come closer. Put your hand here—yes, that's right. Do you feel that?"

Eliot swallows. "Yes."

"Describe it, please."

"I'm not sure how," Eliot says. He's obeying this woman as if she were one of the professors. Could she be from another school? "It feels like an anchor point. But that can't be right."

"It is right, I'm afraid." The Englishwoman says. "Now tell me how it's there."

"It shouldn't be there," Eliot says, but a stern look quells his protest. He feels the boundaries of the anchor point, and stares at her. "It's bound between his life force and his magic."

"Correct. And the connections are sunk too deeply to remove without killing him. Which I'm loath to do—he seems like a perfectly nice young man," the woman says. "Quentin Coldwater is a gateway to Fillory."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm not yet certain of all the details," the woman says. "I have to consult with your Dean. But for as long as that anchor point remains, your friend is in profound danger from the Beast."

 

30\. a super-nerd and a psychic

 

Dean Fogg kicks him out when he arrives. Eliot lurks outside the locked door and promptly attempts an eavesdropping charm, but Fogg wasn't born yesterday. He's alert to Eliot's move immediately, and Eliot's still feeling his brain wobble from the psychic slap Fogg delivered to his intrusion when a visitor approaches Quentin's room.

"So. You're Eliot," he says. 

Eliot tries to recall his face, put a name to it, but he…might have seen him around? Maybe? Good looking guy. Nice eyes, even if they're busy staring Eliot down. 

Eliot nods. "Yeah. But I don't know who you are. I'm sorry."

"Penny Adyodi. I was your boy's roommate up till yesterday. I heard he came at you with a head full of mad just before shit went down, so maybe he's not your boy any more."

He had. And Penny, he of the loud sex orchestra, eyes Eliot like he's not sure if he's going to punch him or not.

Time to defuse. "Well. I deserved it."

Eliot knows when he being appraised, but Penny's scrutiny softens a bit when Eliot admits it. "What did you do?"

"I was stupid. And I wish he would have yelled at me. I wish it had just been a fight."

"I know how that feels," Penny says, the ice melting a little more. "Listen. You need air that doesn't smell like disinfectant and a little sun on your face. How about we walk, huh? I'll keep an eye on that eavesdropping ward, let you know when they're done."

"You can do that?"

"Yeah. It's easy. Come on."

Penny leads the way out of the infirmary and walks out to the quadrangle of eerily perfect lawn, choosing a spot where they can see anyone who gets close enough to overhear them. Eliot weaves a shield against eavesdropping and holds it so he can tell if anyone's trying to break it. Penny looks around like he's inspecting it, but he folds his arms and studies Eliot again.

"I heard that Quentin just about got killed by a monster and you cast some gnarly combat magic and saved his life."

He's so direct it's refreshing. He likes Quentin enough to make it his business. Eliot wants somebody to understand him, suddenly. Never mind the affectation. Quentin's former roommate is psychic. He'd be very hard to lie to. He can't tell Penny everything, but he can give a little.

"Fogg did that," Eliot says. People are watching them talk, but nobody's poked the psychic shield Eliot's holding. "I shielded Q. They said that saved his life."

Penny nods. "Good enough. Is he gonna be okay?"

"I hope so. But it's too early to tell." 

"He better be okay," Penny mutters. "What about the monster? I heard some wild shit about a cloud of insects."

"Moths. He didn't have a head. Just a cloud of moths." 

Moths that could possess people. Moths that don't die when you try to kill them. 

Penny gives him a curious, skeptical look. "I’ve never heard of a monster like that." 

"Me either. But that's what it was."

"Okay, I believe you. Sec." Penny glares at something over his shoulder, and Eliot turns. 

Alice walks away, head down and walking fast, and that's good because Eliot is in no mood for any more Alice for the rest of the year. But if she saw him out here, then she could head for Q's room. 

Eliot jerks to a stop before he even realizes he started moving. Penny grips his shoulder and asks, "You have a problem with Quinn?"

"It's nothing. But—" What if Alice knows something about the creature who attacked Quentin? That copy of _The World in the Walls_ had her name on it. And Eliot doesn't care how much he dislikes the air Alice breathes, if she knows something that will help Q.

"Then what is it?"

"Have you read the _Fillory and Further_ books?"

"Me? Nah," Penny says. "It's hard to read when your head is full of everybody else's voices all day. Why?"

"I need a super-nerd. Somebody who knows everything about the series, all the trivia, everything. I need to know if they have any idea what that monster was."

"Wait, hold up." Penny puts up his hand. "You're saying it's true? Fillory's real?"

"Yes. Fillory's real."

"And you need a super-nerd to tell you if a moth-monster ever came up in the books."

"Yes. And maybe Alice knows something—"

"I gotta say, Eliot. You have a funny way of overlooking the obvious."

"What do you mean?"

Penny points toward the infirmary. "You got a super-nerd right in there. And you got a psychic standing right here. We can ask Quentin. If anybody knows the information you're after, it's him."

Eliot peers at the window. "He's hurt pretty bad, though. I don't know if we should."

"Tell me what's wrong with him," Penny says. "Physical damage? Psychic damage? What?"

"Physical and magical," Eliot says. "They're not accelerating his healing—"

"Yeah, it's too risky," Penny says. "But psychically he's okay. Otherwise they'd be shitting bricks instead of being patient."

"You sure?"

Penny nods. "We just have to get him to answer a few questions. We won't even wake him up."

If anybody knows enough about Fillory to identify the monster, it's Quentin. And if Eliot starts asking around, it'll spread rumors, and--wait.

"How do you know all this stuff about psychic damage and healing?"

"Started hearing voices when I was ten," Penny said. "I've been in mental hospitals, on drugs, I read every book on ESP I could find. Most of it's shit. I mixed with hedges. They know a bit, if you can deal with them. Nothing really worked, though. Not until I got here."

Eliot probably read some of those same books, trying to understand the frightening, powerful thing he could do. If he says yes to this, then Eliot will get the answers he needs. And maybe he can tell Quentin how sorry he is. How badly he fucked up.

Maybe he can ask Quentin to forgive him.

Eliot watches the infirmary window. Can he see people moving around in Quentin's room? "They're still in there?"

"Yeah. Ward's down, though. You go in. I'll follow in a couple minutes. We gonna do this?"

Eliot glances at the infirmary and nods. "Yeah."


	11. thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three

31\. Honeybees in amber

 

There's a healer in the room checking on Quentin when Eliot arrives, answering questions for Dean Fogg and the woman he met earlier, but they stop speaking when they notice Eliot is there.

"I expected you sooner," Dean Fogg says. "I understand you hardly leave his side."

Eliot has an answer for this already. "Penny Adiyodi came by, and we went outside to talk."

Fogg nods to the healer in thanks, and Eliot steps out of the doorway to let him go. Fogg watches him with a downturned mouth. "I do hope you were discreet."

"There are plenty of rumors going around, but I didn't tell him that much. How's Quentin? Is he going to be okay?"

"He's still healing," the woman says. 

"It might be a while before he wakes up, but that simply gives us more time to solve the problem of how to protect him from the—" Dean Fogg stops speaking, pivoting to rephrase. "The long-term effects of the attack."

Eliot isn't here to pretend he doesn't know what Fogg's talking about. "From the anchor point that's been built inside him, you mean."

Fogg gives the woman a sharp look. "Eliza…"

She shrugs. "He asked."

"We do not inform students of matters that shouldn't concern them simply because they ask."

"It does concern me," Eliot says. "He needs shields. I can make them. I can hold the weave open so I can tell he's being attacked, like you held your eavesdropping ward."

"It's a very generous offer, Mr. Waugh. But—"

"It might be necessary," Eliza says, ignoring the stormy expression on Fogg's face. "We'll know more in a few days."

Eliot nods. "I'll do it. No question about it."

"Then we should see about getting you additional instruction from Professor Li," Fogg says. "I'll speak to him."

They move for the door, but Eliot blocks their path. "I have a question about the monster that attacked Quentin," Eliot says. "I know it's from Fillory, but I don't remember anything like it in the books. Do you know what it was?"

Fogg and Eliza trade glances. "The Beast you saw is extremely dangerous. Frighteningly powerful. It will stop at nothing to get what it wants. Don't imagine you can face it. Do you understand me?"

They know. They know exactly what the monster—the Beast—is, but they won't tell? They might as well have put up a billboard that says, _"This is the part where you go rogue and figure it out yourself."_

"But if the Beast were to appear—"

"Since you will already have a shield on Quentin, I advise you to run like hell for help."

"How?"

Eliza moves forward, opening her purse. She pulls out a box filled with polished lumps of amber, each of them formed around an ancient insect. "Carry this," She says, giving Fogg one and Eliot another. "If you blow on it, you will make the insects in the other stones animate. The effect is instant."

Eliot picks one with a prehistoric bee and blows on it. "Then what do I do?"

Dean Fogg clenches his fist over the buzzing stone in his hand. "Everything it takes to stay alive." 

The pronouncement chills Eliot. This is a big, scary, life-threatening deal. He could die trying to protect Quentin—that's what Dean Fogg is trying to tell him.

But he can't walk away. 

Eliot's hand trembles, but he slips the amber stone in his pocket. Eliza smiles. Dean Fogg regards him with a look of respect that raises his eyebrows. They expect him to be Quentin's guardian. He can't fuck this up. He can't.

"One more thing," Fogg says. "The shields around Quentin right now are his last line of defense against the Beast. This anchor inside him will unerringly open a way from Fillory to him if he isn't protected. If it breaks, Quentin will almost certainly come under attack once more." 

Eliot nods. "I understand."

"When Professor Li comes, learn everything you can from him. And if you haven't eaten, there will probably be extra meal trays at the nursing station come lunch."

"Thank you," Eliot says. "I just want to sit with him for a few minutes first."

Eliza looks over her shoulder and smiles at him before she follows Dean Fogg out of the examination room. Eliot looks at the clock. They have an hour before healers make their rounds. Will that be enough time?

Eliot sits beside Quentin and takes his hand. "Hey. You probably heard all that, about how your life depends on you staying shielded so the Beast can't touch you. It's gonna be okay, you hear me? I'm here." He squeezes Quentin's hand and lifts it to his lips. "And I'm gonna stay right here. No more running, Q. I'm right here."

He holds onto Quentin's hand and watches the door for Penny. He has to get here quick. They don't have much time.

 

32\. courage and cohesion

 

Once Fogg and Eliza emerge from the infirmary to stand on the quad, Eliot watches through the plate-glass window and wonders what they're arguing about. It's definitely an argument—one that Eliza's trying hard to win, by the way she's leaning into Dean Fogg's space, but not winning, by the fortress of body language that has Fogg standing resolute.

Eliot holds up his hands and peers through the frame bounded by his thumbs and index fingers, zooming in just in time to watch Eliza's lips form around his name. _Eliot. Risking himself. Courageous._

Eliot drops his hands and rubs his middle. He knows one thing, now. Eliza will be easier to get information from. Eliot tucks that observation away as she spins around and walks away with long, quick strides. Fogg watches her retreat for a minute before he turns and looks back at the infirmary. 

Eliot shrinks a little, but Fogg can't see inside Quentin's room, not when Eliot couldn't make anything out when he was out there earlier. After a frowning moment, Fogg turns and heads toward his office.

Only then does Penny finally show up in Quentin's room, quietly shutting the door behind him. "Hey. I got held up. Did he wake up yet?"

"Where the hell were you? I could have used you when I was trying to pry information out of the Dean and his associate—"

"They're shielded against psychics," Penny says. "All the instructors are. They're not gonna be any different. But listen, we have a problem here."

"What problem?"

Penny waves his hand at Quentin's form. "That shield? I can't get past it. We'll have to take it down."

"That's not happening. The shield has to stay up."

"I can't get in his head with all that in the way," Penny says. "He's locked up tight."

"He will die if he's unprotected," Eliot says. "The Beast will attack the moment he's vulnerable. I'm not taking that shield down for anything."

"Can you take it down and rebuild it around all of us?" Penny asks. "I don't know much guardian shit yet."

"No," Eliot says. "I can't risk him even for the second I would need to re-build it."

"I'm out of ideas, then," Penny says. "He's our best chance of getting a line on the monster. And the more information we have about that thing, the better."

Eliot turns to Quentin, peering at the shield over his body. It's triple layered, protecting him physically, magically, and psychically. He can't lower it, or expose Quentin for even half a second. But—

"You thought of something," Penny says.

"Shh. Thinking."

"Think out loud."

"The shield on Quentin is—I don't want to diss a colleague but it's…competent," Eliot finishes diplomatically. 

"You can do better. That's what you're saying."

"I did research on the use of tessellating shield—let's call them cells," Eliot says. "They act cohesively. The cells want to be together, and so it makes their structure flexible but still stable—"

"Whoa, whoa there, Party King," Penny holds up his hands. "You're innovating the microstructure of magical shielding? You're that good?"

"It's not an innovation," Eliot says quickly. Anxiety courses through his limbs. He's as mortified as he would be making an off-color pun to President Obama. "It's just something I'm fooling around with."

"How good is it?"

Eliot shrugs. "It seems to work so far. I haven't actually done much practical testing."

"Okay. Sure. It sounds amazing. But how does it solve our problem?"

"The technique works on more than one person, so long as they're in physical contact. So I can envelop the three of us in the shield—"

"And take that other shield off Quentin." Penny grins. "Fuckin' brilliant."

"I'm not taking the shield off Quentin," Eliot says. "I'm going to meld us into it. No sense in destroying it—and if I did that, Nolan would be able to tell I'd messed with it."

"Okay. You're the expert. Now let me explain some stuff," Penny says. "Quentin's dreaming right now."

"Okay. So it's like _Inception?_ "

"Yeah, pretty much. But here's the thing you especially need to look out for," Penny says. "You know how you dream about people in your life?"

"Yes. You're saying there's a chance he'll be dreaming about me."

"We're gonna be lucid, but Quentin's mind is the one driving the bus. If he's dreaming about you, and you walk into his dream, you have to be a strong psychic to not wind up playing the role he's dreaming about for you."

"So I'm going to become whatever he's dreaming of, if he's dreaming about me." Dread curls long, bony fingers around his stomach. And he would see what Quentin thinks and believes about him, after what he'd done to break Quentin's heart.

"Right. So you have to hold on to what you're really doing there. And because you're lucid, you can exert some control. Enough to disrupt the dream and talk to him. But if you forget it's not real? You could get locked in."

"What does that mean?"

"You'll forget yourself. You'll become whatever Q sees you as. And there's a good chance that you won't ever wake up, not even if he does."

"Okay. Maybe you should have led with that," Eliot says.

Penny shrugs. "You backing out?"

He'll face whatever Q thinks of him now. And he'll be lucid enough to grab the wheel and take over. Quentin will give him the information about the Beast. He'll get everything he needs to protect Quentin, no matter what.

Even if Q hates him for what he did.

He looks Penny in the eye and shakes his head. "No."

Penny nods. "All right then. Let's do it."

 

33\. Beautiful dreamer

 

They each take one of Quentin's hands and clasp each other's over Quentin's still form. The shield begins with a single cell directly over Quentin's solar plexus, splitting into two the moment it forms; each tiny cell interlocks with its neighbors as they spread over Quentin's body in an eyeblink. Penny's staring at him open mouthed as the cells envelop all three of them, and Eliot licks his lips.

"Okay. This next step is...tricky." He opens the shield around Quentin with a tiny hole. "Can you work with that?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Holy shit, man. That was—"

"Nothing," Eliot says. "Do your thing."

"Okay. So it's gonna be dark, and then you'll feel like you're in a tunnel, just keep walking till you come to a door. Open it, and you're in."

The lights go out a second after Penny says it. Eliot's standing in total darkness, and nothing is in reach of the span of his arms. He takes a step on a floor texture that feels like short, densely piled carpet, and the blackness lightens to gray. Another step, another, and details emerge from the darkness until he's in a hallway that screams luxury apartment. 

He follows the rose-covered carpet runner past doors that don't have knobs to the one at the end of the hall, the one flanked by two concrete urns filled with golden-hearted pink stargazer lilies. The door is dark-stained walnut; the doorknob and knocker are matching lion's heads. 

He can smell the lilies. He touches their waxy-cool petals and sets his hand on the brass lion's head doorknob.

It's unlocked.

Eliot opens the dream-door to a spacious pre-war apartment. Jazz piano and a trip-hop beat covering _La Vie en Rose_ play from wall-mounted speakers, and that smell... Eliot takes in a deep breath and his eyes well with tears because he smells—

His favorite dinner. Chicken squares folded into a neat envelope of pastry dough, the insides filled with chicken and cream cheese, so good he always burnt his tongue on the first bite because he couldn't wait for it to cool. He hasn't eaten a chicken square since— 

He banishes the memory of yellow flowered wallpaper and pink gingham kitchen curtains. "Q?"

"In the kitchen."

Where's the kitchen? To the left. Eliot passes through a wide hallway with a formal dining room on the left side and a sunken living room to the right, and Eliot knows he's on the Upper East side, and what is he doing here? 

Bright color in the living room catches his eye. The room is a mix of the formal and the comfortable, with waist-high bookshelves on every wall. But he comes closer to a series of three illustrations that look like the artist is actually Arthur Rackham and Louis Comfort Tiffany reincarnated in the same body. 

They're a triptych of book covers: _Cynosure, Nemesis, Sempiternal: The Cycle of Étaín_ by Eliot Waugh.

Eliot stops dead in his tracks, staring at the ethereal, intricate illustrations. It's Étaín. It's Étaín, exactly as he imagined her, first at the Pool of Dreams, then fleeing the Witch-Queen, then Étaín in her full, sorcerous glory. What is this? How can this be in Quentin's dream?

"Did you get lost out there?" Quentin asks, and Eliot spins around to see his hair cut short and streaked with silver, all the better to match the laugh lines around his eyes and the smile lines next to his mouth. He's fully grown up, now, even if he's wearing a silly chef's apron that says _Kiss the Cook_ and how can this be _Quentin's_ dream?

He's changing it. Eliot's shaping it, just like Penny said, and if it drags him in he might never come out. He'll be with Quentin forever, here in this dream where everything is perfect and it feels so _real_ and he wants—

Quentin slips his arms around Eliot's waist and tilts his head back to smile up at him. Up close, Quentin smells like warm amber, spicy sandalwood, and that darkly sex-focused fragrance just underneath. "How did it go?"

Eliot has no idea what Quentin is talking about. "So good I want to kiss you. Will you let me?"

Quentin's mouth on his nearly brings him to his knees. Dream Quentin kisses like he's learned every trick in Eliot's book and knows exactly how to make Eliot melt until he slips away with a sparkling smile.

"I have to stir the mushroom sauce."

Fuck. Fuck. He follows Quentin to a kitchen that must have cost—but then he knows. He remembers the kitchen remodel—they'd gone on culinary trips, cooking classes in Tuscany and Morey-St-Denis and Vienna while the decorators worked. The meeting today was with his agent and a Hollywood producer with nine figures in his pocket who gushed about Étaín the whole meeting. He remembers their wedding, hosted by Q's mother in New Jersey, and how his mother had come at the last second, even if she had to come alone. 

Eliot remembers all of it—the perfection of their home, their life together, and if he just…let go a little, they could stay. Just like this.

Forever, until they die.

The first step backward rips a little hole in his heart. "Quentin. I have something important to tell you."

"How many zeroes does it have, and what's your percentage?"

"This isn't real," Eliot says. "You're in the infirmary in Brakebills University. You were badly hurt. Do you remember?"

Quentin goes completely blank. When he stirs again, he shakes his head, and shivering strands of silver fade from his hair.

"Quentin. I'm sorry but this is a dream. You don't have to wake up yet. You shouldn't. But I need you to remember the day Julia came to Brakebills."

"It was the same day I did," Quentin says. "She took the test at the same time. She's a professor there now."

Fuck. He and Julia had made peace, and he guest lectures about methods of magical defense to first year students who mostly want him to sign their books. "That's only in the dream, Quentin. Julia didn't pass the test. Do you remember? She asked you to help her prove she had magic by breaking past the wards. She improvised a spell, and it hurt you."

Fear flickers in Quentin's eyes before he blanks out again. Two seconds of complete vacancy, and then he smiles as if somebody flipped a switch, and the lines around his eyes smooth out. "If they're going to film in Ireland, we should go. Several times."

"I saved you," Eliot says, and it hurts to say it, it hurts to break the dream Quentin's lost himself in. "You nearly died, because you were attacked. But just before that—"

"I made a cake," Quentin says. A perfectly frosted layer cake rests on a plate on the counter, now. "Just how you like it, with lemon curd between the layers and buttercream icing."

Every breath stabs him. "Quentin. Listen to me. I saved you, because I was there when the attack came. And I was there because you had come to berate me, because I—"

"No," Quentin says in a very small voice. "Don't. We're happy here. We're happy. We're happy. We're—"

Oh fuck, it hurts. It hurts. "Because I broke up with you that morning. Because I got scared, and when I'm scared, I run."

Quentin screws his eyes shut. "Please."

"I broke up with you," Eliot says. "You trusted me and I hurt you. And then you came up to me on the quad to shout at me, because you knew I was a coward, and then—"

Tears leak from Quentin's eyes. "Please. We're happy. We're _happy._ Don't—"

He's hurting Q. He's tearing his beautiful dream to shreds, and he hates it, he loathes what he's doing to Q. He can stop it, if he forgets. All he has to do is forget.

Eliot sucks in another breath and tears another strip away. "Do you remember the moths? Quentin, do you remember the man with no face? Quentin. Please. I need you to tell me. Who is the man with no face?"

Quentin's crying now, his lips stretched wide around heart-wrenching sobs. He's a young man again, the light strands in his hair from peroxide and artistry. "We broke up. We—"

"I'm so sorry, Quentin. I'm sorry. But you're still in danger from the man with no face. Who is he?"

Quentin sniffs hard and points. "Him."

A moth flies into the room, and Eliot spins around.

Penny stands in the threshold of the kitchen, a fluttering whisper of moths obscuring his face.


	12. thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six

34\. Honey and decay - cw homophobia, body horror, canon-typical violence

 

Shit. Eliot fucked up. He fucked up bad, and as Penny steps inside the long, narrow galley kitchen everything suddenly makes sense—Penny's curiosity and flattery. The offer Eliot couldn't refuse. Leaving him to sink into Quentin's dream and forget long enough for Penny to waltz in and—

Penny lifts his hands, and Eliot blocks Quentin's body with his own. He thrusts out his hands, weaving a shield of clear golden light. It springs to life, blocking a gooey looking beam of energy that splatters across its curved surface. The shield shudders, but Eliot puts his back into it and the layer thickens, hardens.

"Quentin Coldwater. This battle is futile," Penny says. "You will certainly lose. But I prefer your cooperation."

Penny's body, Penny's vocal pitch, but it's not Penny's _voice._ This voice drips with honey and decay, its accent clear, diction crisp— 

Like Eliza's voice.

"You don't belong here," Quentin says. "You don't belong in my dream."

It's everything Eliot can do to hold the shield in his right hand, wresting his left hand free to twist his fingers into honing a force blade. 

He sends it flying, but snatches the spell back at the last second. What if that myth about dying in a dream means you die for real? He'd kill Penny. He can't. But moth-possessed Penny strikes the shield again. Eliot has to lean into his shield to hold it, the cohesive triple layered cells rushing in to fill the damage done—and weakening it on the edges. 

Eliot prays mothling-Penny doesn't notice.

"All this struggle. It's tiresome, Quentin. This last stand. This final, heroic existence. All it means is that Eliot Waugh will die, and then I will have what I want."

He can't kill Penny just to kill the Beast. But the Beast has no such compunction about him. "Fight him, Quentin. Fight!"

"I don't want you here," Quentin says. "You don't belong. Leave me and Eliot alone."

"You can stay in the dream forever, Quentin. You and Eliot. Forever." the Beast's voice is hypnotic, the tone like spun sugar and rotting meat. "Isn't it better than real life? Isn't it better than a world where Eliot rejected you and broke your heart? Here, he won't ever hurt you again."

"He broke up with me," Quentin says. "He just—ran away."

"But not here," the Beast croons. "Here, he loves you. Here you can have Eliot, exactly as you desire, and he will love you and never run again."

"Quentin," Eliot says. "Quentin I'm sorry. I freaked out, I got jealous and scared and I left you before you could leave me and—"

The Beast casts another dense, slimy attack, hurling it so hard Eliot's knocked backwards. He stumbles, desperate to keep his balance, but he can't. The shield pops like a soap bubble as he cracks his elbow on the woodblock counter and lands on his ass. 

The fetid, greasy magic the Beast cast at Eliot lands on him, transforming into a whisper of moths, wings flickering, their tiny hairlike feet crawling across his skin. He opens his mouth to scream, and a fuzzy-winged creature steps on his tongue.

A thousand voices whisper to him like wings. _Failure. Potential wasted. Pretender. Fraud._

"Eliot!" Quentin shouts.

_Catamite. Fuckup. Faggot._

"You can save him," the Beast says. "Just let me use your body. You don't need it. Out there is only pain and dashed hopes and disappointment. In here, you can have Eliot. Forever."

Why isn't the Beast attacking Quentin? Why is it cajoling him, persuading, offering temptation? "Fight! It's afraid of you, Quentin! Fight—"

He chokes on wing-dust. _Coward. Loser. Fake._

The Beast takes another step, and the voices drown out anything but the roaring flicker of moth's wings. Quentin screams at the Beast, punching out a spell wrought from emotion, and the Beast crashes against the stove. The boiling pot tips over, a torrent of water splashing on his skin.

Quentin whales the Beast with another spell, and blood splashes over clean white cabinets.

"No! Penny's in there!" Eliot can't hear himself over the wings and the voices and the scalding hot shame. _Disappointment. Pervert. No son of mine._

"Get out!" Quentin shouts. Light blasts from his hands. The beast convulses as the light strikes it, and Penny's body crumbles into tiny golden sparks that brighten, flare, and go dim until there's nothing there.

Silence falls on the kitchen. No more moths. No more voices. Only the sounds of Quentin's sniffing, throaty sobs.

"Q," Eliot says. "It's all right. You did it. You did it."

Quentin doesn't look at him. "You broke up with me."

"I know. I'm so, so sorry. It was shitty and cowardly and I fucked up so bad—"

"It’s okay," Quentin says with a gasp and a sob. "I can fix it."

The kitchen's back the way it was. Water boils in the blue enameled cast iron pot on the stove. Not a drop of blood remains on the cabinets. All the moths have vanished.

Quentin offers his hand and helps Eliot to his feet. "I can fix it. We can be happy. Right here."

Eliot's heart breaks all over again. "It's a dream, Q."

"I don't care," Quentin says. "You never broke up with me here. We got old. We got married. Everything's perfect. Don't make me go back."

Eliot curls his arms around Quentin, and Quentin buries his tear-wet face in the crook of Eliot's neck. He rocks Quentin back and forth, lullaby gentle, and kisses the top of his head. "You can stay, Q. You don't have to wake up yet. You can stay here where it's safe. But I have to go."

Quentin squeezes him tighter. "No."

"Either Penny's dead or he's about to kill me. I have to go so you have a reason to wake up."

"There is no reason."

"I'm your reason, Q. I need you to wake up. I'm waiting for you."

He looks up. "You're waiting for me?"

"Every minute," Eliot says. "But I have to—"

His throat closes around pain and he can barely get air; his pulse beats hard in his throat and it hurts—

"Send me now," Eliot croaks. "Q. He's—"

Q's crying as he casts Eliot out of the dream. 

The pain's worse. He's lightheaded. The infirmary's getting dark. And Penny, gazing at him with lifeless, empty eyes, squeezes his hands around Eliot's throat.

 

35\. Brainfart day

 

Eliot gathers his intent and punches it out of his palms, wrenching over Quentin's body as Penny's fingernails carve long, hot tracks on his neck. Penny falls against the cabinet, the back of his head connecting with a sick thump. A sympathy pain blooms on Eliot's skull as he seizes the tattered edges of Quentin' shield and slams it shut. There's no time. Penny shakes his head, wasting time with getting on his feet. 

Thank you, Jesus. Eliot casts a shield around Penny, weaving the physical barrier alone. Tight. It's got to be tight, dense as carbon crushed into diamond. Penny takes a step forward, freezes midstride, and topples.

Fuck. Eliot winces and draws Penny's body in the air, lifting his hands as if the shield were attached by strings. The inside of the shield shudders as Penny casts a force bolt, trying to blast his way out. 

Eliot calls it the hardshell. Con: can't move an inch when it's down to that density. Pro: bullets bounce off it.

Well, Eliot's not going to shoot Penny, Beast or no Beast. He turns his palms upward in a gesture that could hoist a platter in the air, and Penny rises. One hand describes the turning of a circle, and the infirmary door opens.

He's halfway down the hall before Dean Fogg appears, the lines on his face deep with determination. "Mr. Waugh. Set him down."

"Can't do it," Eliot says. "He conned me into penetrating Quentin's shields. I nearly died back there."

"Mr. Waugh. That is not Mr. Adyodi. It's—"

"The Beast," Eliot says. "He's driving, at least. I need to take him to the clean room."

He shoos Penny's body along as if he were pushing a balloon, but sweat breaks out on his forehead, and his stomach does a nauseous little roll. He's hit his limit, but he has to make it. He has to take Penny down the stairs and across the hall and—

"Let me." 

Dean Fogg takes over steering Penny, his fingers directing the direction and speed. "Hold that shield. Don't throw up. Forty more steps. Come on."

Eliot's gonna hurl. He swallows down bile, tries to control the urge to hyperventilate, and puts one foot in front of the other. Thirty steps. The hallway tilts at a dizzy angle. He stumbles, but doesn't let go of the shield.

Twenty steps. Don't cock this up, Waugh. Move your feet. Fight. His heart's beating so fast, but going so faint. No. Hold on. Ten steps. Nine. Fogg nods to a guard, who pulls the door open. Five. Almost there, almost there. Julia scrambles backwards, scooting herself into a corner, but everything's going gray.

"Dean Fogg," Eliot says. "I can't—"

He falls to his knees and crawls across the threshold. The concrete under his hands is so, so cold. Eliot slips and falls, knocking his chin on the floor.

The pain flares up his temples and disrupts the shield. Penny struggles and kicks, choking, and a mouse-brown Fillorian moth crawls out of his mouth and lands wetly on the floor.

Dean Fogg lifts one Oxford-shod foot and crushes it, grinding the remains under his sole. 

"It won't do any good," Eliot says. "It won't die."

He rolls over onto his back, staring up at the bare lightbulbs suspended from the ceiling, the pipes and ductwork crisscrossing just under the support beams. Penny gags, retching, and the sour smell of gall rises to the air.

"It...that thing was—"

"It took you," Julia says. "It took you and all you could do was watch while it told lies. Fooled your friends. And then it hurt them."

"Who are you?" Penny asks. "Why are you locked up?"

"That's Julia Wicker, and you two have something in common," Dean Fogg says. "You've both been the puppet of a mind moth, and because you were possessed, the Beast now knows everything you know--about your past, your magic, and what you know about Quentin Coldwater, right until the moment you entered this room."

Eliot feels his jaw with careful, hesitant fingers. Not broken, but blood drips from where he hit his chin. "That's it, then, right? You said there were two. Penny got the moth I released from the spell, and Julia got the moth--when?"

Julia draws her knees up to her chest and loops her arms around them. "September 10th."

Fogg looks closely at her. "You're sure."

"I thought it was a nightmare," Julia flexes her bare feet at the ankles, lifting her toes off the stone-cold floor. "I dreamed a moth flew in my window. I couldn't move, you know, but it crawled on my face and it...went inside my mouth, and then I woke up."

Eliot knows exactly how it must have felt, and shudders. Julia sucks in a sobbing breath. "I drank five glasses of water, I gargled, because even though it had to be a dream, it seemed so real--but it _was_ real. It was inside me. And it made me hurt Quentin."

"But that was before the exam," Eliot says. "Quentin didn't get here until the 12th. The tenth was—" he blinks. "Brainfart day."

Julia blinks at him. "Brainfart day?"

"It was fucked up." Eliot pushes himself up on his elbows. "I kept forgetting what I was doing. I swore I had written two pages of my argument paper for the under-theory of warding magics and I couldn't find them anywhere. But I know I typed them. The whole day was like that. I kept forgetting things--it must have happened fifty times."

"Forty," Dean Fogg mutters.

Eliot cocks his head. "What?"

Fogg ignores him and looks at the undying moth on the floor. "I think it's time I showed Julia to a proper dorm room. You two need to report to the infirmary. Penny, can you help Eliot?"

Eliot looks up at Penny, and dried blood cracks on his chin. "Penny, I'm really sorry about all the hits—"

"Mothman over there was trying to kill you," Penny said. "I don't think I would have been nearly as careful if I were in your shoes."

"Still. You need to get a cranial exam."

"Shut up and get on your feet." Penny offers his hand. "I'm mad at the moth. Not at you."

"Okay." Eliot accepts his hand and lets Penny haul him up. 

 

36\. Something true

 

"No, no," Eliot says to the student healer who's preparing to shoot his chin full of lidocane. "You don't touch the face. The cosmetic surgeon touches the face. Where's that mirror?"

Penny laughs soundlessly, lifting the eye mask to peer at Eliot. "You realize scars give you character."

"Not on my beautiful cleft chin they don't," Eliot grumbles. That cut's too deep to go without stitches, by Eliot's inspection. "Or my sharp cheekbones, or anywhere else on the face."

Penny shrugs. "I don't need a cranial exam. I feel fine. It's just a bump."

"Concussion syndrome and risk of subdural hematoma—ow!" Eliot hisses and claps a hand to his neck, where the student healer tries to clean the scratches.

"Okay, Grey's Anatomy," Penny says. "I'll take the stupid exam if you let the trainee stitch your chin."

"It's under the cleft anyway," the healer says. "You won't have much of a scar even if I fuck it up."

"Don't fuck it up," Eliot says, and tilts his head back. "I'm only doing this because I want you to get your head checked."

"You have to keep your chin still," the trainee says.

Eliot sighs and lets the healer work. Her stitches are quick and efficient and Eliot can't feel a thing. Once she finishes, Eliot pushes the numb patch of skin and sits still for the rest of the second exam, which involves poking and dazzling his eyes with lights and other foolery.

"You need a straight week of restful sleep," the healer trainee says. "Be in bed by 11."

"Oh he'll need help with that," Penny says.

The healer scoffs and signs Eliot's chart. "You're free to go."

Okay. Eliot's done, but the healer who's supposed to look at Penny hasn't come and he needs to get a look at Quentin's shield and—

"Stop jiggling your leg."

"I'm not."

"You are. Look. Go check on Quentin. It's been at least an hour, you're crawling out of your skin."

"But you—"

"Don't need handholding waiting for a healer. Go on."

"You sure?"

Penny sighs, but he smiles at the end of it. "Will you just go?"

"Fine. I know when I'm not wanted," Eliot huffs, but he comes over to stretch out his hand and Penny takes it even though he can't see with the eyemask on—

"Psychic," Penny says, squeezing. "Go see your man."

Eliot doesn't run. He's too damn tired for that. But he hurries to Quentin's room, pushing the door open as he pokes his numb chin and stops in the doorway because Quentin's awake. He's sitting up and drinking water in a green plastic cup from a bendy straw and hovering over him is Alice Quinn.

His stomach plummets, but he stays tall. "You're awake."

"You can't kick me out again," Alice says. "Quentin wants me here."

"You're awake. I told you that you could stay—"

"You said you were waiting for me," Quentin says.

He had said that. And when Quentin woke up, he wasn't there. Promise broken. Eliot's a disappointment again. "I'm sorry. We had a bit of a battle, I—"

He raises his chin and points to the stitches.

"You got in a fight with someone who wanted to see him?" Alice asks, her pretty blue eyes wide. "You have a problem. A serious problem. Quentin—"

Quentin pats Alice's arm. "It's not what you think. Eliot was saving my life."

"That's right. And you might be interested to know that they approached me as a concerned friend, wanting to get close to Quentin. A lot like what you're doing now."

Alice glares, her mouth pinched shut. "If you're suggesting—"

"I am," Eliot says. "There's a way to prove you're not possessed. If you go to Dean Fogg and tell him you want to go in the clean room, and he vouches for you—"

"Possessed! I've never heard anything so—"

"Alice," Quentin says. "He’s not wrong. And if you're not possessed, can you just do it and prove you're safe?"

Alice's demeanor softens when she looks at Quentin. "All right."

"And if you don't come back," Eliot says, "I’ll let Dean Fogg know, and we'll come looking for you."

Alice eyes him with a flinty, hateful stare. She stalks out of the room, presumably on her way to see Fogg. Or make a run for it. Eliot doesn't care.

"Why don't you like her?"

"Because she likes you."

"That's—"

"Childish and insecure."

Quentin tilts his head and muses over it. "Yeah."

"I'm owning it," Eliot says. "I thought you would rather be with her than with me, and then I started thinking about how much I wanted to be with you and then—"

"And then you broke up with me. Because you wanted to be with me."

"I know it sounds ridiculous."

Quentin flops his head back into the pile of pillows and sighs. "Take my water. And sit down."

"Are we having a fight?" Eliot takes the half-empty cup from Quentin and sets it on the rolling table at the foot of his bed. He sits in the same chair as before.

"I hate fighting," Quentin says. "Mom and Dad fought all the time, and it was always about winning the argument. I don't want to win an argument with you."

"But we have to talk."

Quentin offers his hand. "Hold."

Eliot scoots the chair closer.

"Now look at me. And when you're ready, tell me something true."

Quentin's hair is combed, but it's greasy from bed-rest. His lips are dry and chapped looking. There's sleep in his eyes, he hasn't shaved in forever and Eliot can see where the lines will fan out near his eyes, how his smile will mark itself around Quentin's mouth, exactly how he'll go gray at the temples.

"I didn't want to leave your dream," Eliot says. "Because it was so perfect. I don't know how you knew I wanted to write."

"I saw you typing some of it out," Quentin says. "And you rattled off that medieval Irish lit as a time travel fantasy a little too fast for it to be a whole-cloth lie."

"Guilty," Eliot says. "Nobody knows that."

"Okay, my turn." Quentin squeezes Eliot's hand. "I don't know how we fix this."

No. No, no, don't say that. "Isn't that what we're doing right now?"

"It's not just one talk, El. I don't know if you understand how much it hurt. One minute you were talking about weekend getaways and then all of the sudden you're going to a wizard orgy in Ibiza, just because you caught a mood?"

"It was stupid. I should have—what if I had told you I was jealous of the pretty blonde overachiever with utterly gorgeous tits? Right there in the kitchen, would you have told me it was stupid?"

Quentin doesn't answer right away. "I would have told you she was pretty," he said.

It hurts. "Oh."

"And I would have told you that she doesn't make time stop when she looks at me. She doesn't make me feel like everything is more real when she touches me. And I don't zone out in the middle of class thinking about kissing her. I like her. But I—I never felt anything like what I felt with you."

How quiet and heavy those soft words are. "Felt."

"When I look at you now—" Quentin looks away, but he doesn't let go. "I want you so bad, Eliot. You know what I want. You saw it. It was like this secret I carried around in my chest, tiny and full of hope and—"

"Don't let it go," Eliot says, his voice barely above a whisper. "Please. Hold onto it."

"Help me," Quentin says. "Help me hold onto it. Tell me something else true."

Something true. Something to tuck next to the dream of middle aged Eliot being worthy of Quentin. Something to mend what he'd broken. Something as brave and as naked as Quentin's honesty. Something real.

Eliot never lets go. He looks at Quentin, greasy haired and unshaven with a feeding tube up his nose and time stops. Details sharpen. Tiny sounds are more distinct. The cotton waffle-weave blanket under their hands is slubby and rough.

Eliot doesn't have words for what he's feeling right now. Or maybe he does, if he can stir his cowardly tongue and say something true.

"I think I'm in love with you." 


	13. thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine

 

37\. Too tired to fight

 

"Oh god," Quentin says. His face is softer, brighter. He looks at Eliot with the same wonder he wore when he had that first taste of wine, after the first kiss on the couch. "Holy shit, Eliot. That's—you do? You're—"

"Yes. I don't know how else to explain it. I'm falling in love with you."

Quentin's like the sun. He shines, and Eliot's warm in the close circle of his glow and his sincere, unmasked emotion. It's wonderful. He's falling in.

"Wow. Okay. I—thank you. That's so—wow."

A chill whispers across Eliot's shoulders. This is the part where Quentin is supposed to say something. Isn't it? "You're not saying it back."

His sunshine smile turns a bit sad. "I'm not ready to say it back."

The cold pools in Eliot's stomach. Not ready. Quentin wasn't feeling this too? But Quentin looks at him and his eyes go soft and fond, and he smiles like he's happy to be where he is, but—is that not enough?

Unless it's another reason. "Not until I've earned it?"

"No. You took a huge risk, and I believe you, and it's amazing, but—"

Eliot's pulse goes sluggish. "But you're not ready to say it."

"You needed to take the risk, El." Quentin strokes the back of Eliot's hand with his thumb. "But, I don’t know, maybe I need something different when I say it."

Something different. Something more romantic than sitting in a hospital bed? Eliot can do that. Rose petal carpet. Soap bubble machine. A portal to France. Moonlight and more wine and candlelit dinner, anything. "What do you need? Tell me. I'll do it."

"I need to feel safe."

There it is. This is the glass mountain he has to climb. He knew how to make Quentin feel admired, romanced, seduced. How could he make Quentin feel safe?

By being safe. By showing him safe.

"I'd like to cuddle with you," Eliot says. "Will you let me?"

"Yes. After I get these tubes out? After I get clean?"

Eliot lifts Quentin's hand and kisses it. "Let me go find a healer."

Quentin doesn't want him in the room when the tubes come out. Eliot waits in the hall and pokes at the stitches in his chin. He can sort of feel it now, a little throb of pain that he feels if he focuses on it. 

A woman dressed in black and white Brakebills athletic clothing walks toward him, and a few feet later the figure resolves into Julia Wicker, looking half scared and half ready to fight. Eliot watches her walk up to him, her steps never faltering. When she gets about four feet away, she stops, feet apart, hands on her hips in full Wonder Woman.

"I want to see him." 

Holy God, but he's tired. He's tired and worn out and while Quentin's magic is at risk, Julia didn't do it. And he doesn't want to fight any more.

"I imagine he wants to see you," Eliot replies. "But right now he doesn't even want to be disturbed by me. Want to wait?"

"Yes. I want to wait." She folds her arms and keeps her attention on the hall. The shower runs in Quentin's bathroom, and Eliot sighs, leaning against the neutral gray wall.

"God, I would kill for a cigarette right now."

He catches the smell, then. Fresh tobacco, good cured Virginia leaf with an under-note of raisins wafting from Julia's person.

Julia turns a sidelong gaze at him. "You want one?"

"I don't actually want one. I quit. It's just stress."

Julia laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Yeah. Stress."

"Yeah I guess you'd know, after being in the joint. How's freedom?"

Julia sighs. "Cleaner. I don't blame him for wanting a shower the second he could take one. Do you know how he is?"

"Fine. Mostly fine. Healers can tell us more. And they can tell us how long he needs to stay here." 

Julia pauses for a moment, peering at him. "You're talking to me." 

"Yeah. I am. I might break and need a smoke or something."

"But you're talking to me. After everything I did."

"After everything the moth possessing you did," Eliot says. "I realized when you helped Penny that you weren't in control until we got you into the clean room, and that's—I wouldn't want to be in your shoes."

Julia's expression loses some of its tension. "I don't know how I'm going to make it up to Q. Did his magic turn out all right?"

"Don't know yet," Eliot says. "He can't cast until he's given the go-ahead."

The water shuts off, and they both turn to the door, waiting for long moments for it to open.

"I think he'll forgive you," Eliot says. "He forgave me."

Julia gives him a curious look. "Why? What did you do?"

The door opens, and the senior healer gestures them inside. Quentin's in a freshly made bed, smiling. "No more tubes." He's still wearing two days of beard and his hair drips water on his hospital gown, but he's transformed. 

Eliot hurries to him and hugs him tight. "You're okay."

"They won't let me go home yet. I can't cast, and there's a complication."

"What complication? What—"

Julia hovers near the door. "If you need to talk medical stuff, I can—"

"It's all right." Quentin turns to the healer. "They both need to hear this."

"Recovery is ongoing," the healer says, referring to the chart in his hands. "Quentin's magic is still restoring itself, and in this situation he cannot cast spells or receive magical healing lest the action arrest the process of rejuvenation. In fact it's best if Quentin remains in a low stress environment, but he doesn't need to be cooped up in here."

Eliot watches the healer for clues, but he's impassive. "That's…that's good. Isn't it?" 

"I drained your magic," Julia says. "And you might not get all of it back."

"We would discharge Quentin today, if it weren't for the other, more serious problem."

"What's that?" Eliot and Julia ask in unison. But Eliot answers his own question. "The anchor point to Fillory. That's it, isn't it?"

"The what?"

"Because Quentin's blood was a part of the spell, the other end of the Krasnikov portal anchored itself inside Quentin."

Julia covers her mouth. "Shit."

"We can't remove it without destroying Quentin's ability to do magic. But it’s an enormous risk. Currently, a powerful multi-layered shield protects Quentin from the effects. But Quentin can't maintain and monitor his own shields, and we can't spare a guardian to watch over him every moment."

"I can do it," Eliot says. "I'll shield him."

The healer looks dubious. "I appreciate the volunteerism, but Quentin can't be exposed for even a second, and the shields are especially complex."

"I'm writing my thesis on triple layered cell-generated tessellation." Eliot swallows. He can do this. He can keep Quentin safe. "He can stay with me. I can attend his classes."

"That changes things. If Quentin agrees, then I could discharge him and he can be monitored on daily visits to determine how regeneration's going. But it is important that Quentin concentrates on self-care and stress relief. I'll put relevant literature in the discharge package."

"Thank you," Quentin says. "You've been great, but I really want to get out of here."

The healer nods. "We'll get you some clothes from the gym laundry."

"Why can't I wear my clothes?"

Eliot clears his throat. "They cut them off you, Q."

Quentin's crestfallen. "Shit. Everything? The sweater too?"

"We'll go hunting for replacements," Eliot promises. "And Julia needs to pack. So, field trip tomorrow?"

 

38\. Four hundred seventeen spells and a promise

 

"Is there a bathtub in the house? It says here that soaking in a tub is recommended," Quentin shakes open the brochure and squints at the print as they stroll along the pathways to the cottage. 

"There is a very nice one in the bathroom off the kitchen," Eliot says. "It's long and deep, but if you don't want to be disturbed you'll have to use it early."

"And I'm supposed to limit my screen time. I think that's handled."

"Ooh, spa days," Julia says. She stretches out her hand and catches a falling yellow leaf. "Hot stone massages?"

"Good one," Quentin says. "Also reading—hm. I should catch up on books."

"In the hammock," Eliot says. They have a few good weeks for the hammock left, but the leaves are turning early this year. "It's a great place to intend to read, and then wind up having a nap."

"Oh yeah, perfect." Quentin flips the page of the brochure. "Yoga, meditation, mindfulness—the psychics meditate, right?"

"Every morning."

"Plenty of sleep," Quentin reads. "Listening to music. Getting your vegetables."

"Bloody Marys are a vegetable."

"Alcohol is on the list to avoid," Quentin says. "Oh. Ha! Sex is on the yes list."

Eliot perks up and raises his hand. "I volunteer as tribute."

"It does not say that. Really?" Julia snatches the brochure from Quentin's hands. "Oh wow. 'Intimacy and prolonged pleasure approached with mindfulness.' Well. I'm obviously the third wheel here. I can head back to the dorm—"

"We'll see you tomorrow?" Eliot asks, as Quentin says, "Oh but you have to see it."

"I can see it tomorrow," Julia says. "You two go have fun." 

Julia jogs away before Quentin can insist. Eliot shrugs his shoulders and glances at Quentin, who's studying the brochure on self-care and recovery after magical depletion.

"I shouldn't have chased off your friend," Eliot says. "Or—I don't even know if sex is a thing you want right now."

Quentin glances at him, but sticks his nose in the brochure again. "Tell me why you want to do it."

"Lots of reasons," Eliot says. "Um. Not to buff myself up but I'm very good at it. It's excellent stress relief. I am pretty much down to fuck at any moment. Because I want to make you feel good."

"What about—" Quentin swallows. "Uh. Feelings?"

"My feelings or your feelings?"

Quentin looks away. "I don't know."

And that's an answer, if not the answer he wanted. "Quentin. If you're not sure you want to, the answer's no until you are."

"It's not that," Quentin says. "I'm just wondering if it'll be weird for you. Because. Will you feel like you have to hold back?"

"Do you mean, will I be having sex while caging my own feelings?"

"I don't want you to feel like you have to do that," Quentin says. "But what if it's weird? What if it's not fair? Or—"

"Quentin." Eliot catches his elbow and tugs. Quentin spins and nearly collides with Eliot's chest. "I would like to take you to my bed and make love to you. Is that all right? I want to do it slowly. What do you want?"

"I want to feel you love me," Quentin says. "Is that selfish? Is it—"

Eliot catches Quentin's face in his hands. "It's exactly what I want you to feel."

"Okay," Quentin says. "Then yeah. Take me to your bed."

Eliot bows his head and kisses Quentin before he takes his hand and walks a little faster on the way to the cottage. He whips the door open with a gesture and pulls Quentin inside.

"Quentin!" Someone shouts, and the main floor's in a chorus of hurrahs and they're already swarming the foyer. Eliot waves at them and heads straight for the stairs while Quentin says, "Hi! Um. Bye!" and follows him up to Eliot's room.

There's still discarded clothes on the floor, and Eliot stares Quentin right in the eye as he slowly unpicks his tie. "Take that off."

Quentin rushes through stripping off the borrowed gym t-shirt and track pants so quickly he's naked by the time Eliot hangs his vest on the back of a rush-woven wooden chair. Quentin watches Eliot raise his hands to unfasten the collar button; Eliot watches Quentin fall under the spell of each button falling open, watching hungrily for every fresh inch of skin exposed.

"I can't use magic on you, which is a pity. But there's plenty of time for that."

Quentin sits on the edge of the bed so Eliot can enjoy the sight of his cock getting hard. "What kind of magic?"

Eliot smiles and unfastens the buttons on his cuffs. "They don't formally teach it at Brakebills, but there are countless spells meant to enhance sex. I know four hundred and seventeen of them."

Quentin's eyes go wide at that. "That many."

"I had an interest."

"Will you teach them to me?"

Eliot adores him. "Every last one."

The shirt floats through the air, discarded. Quentin's attention is on Eliot's hands; first opening the tongue of his belt, then as he pops the button at his waist and unzips. Eliot doesn't tease him through removing two layers, so Quentin sucks in his breath as Eliot stands up.

"Fuck." Quentin curls his hand around his dick and strokes. He swallows, gazing at Eliot's cock, still swelling to full size. 

He won't ever get tired of that hungry, yearning look on Quentin's face, or how his mouth falls open when Eliot wraps his hand around the length and enjoys the gentle slide of his foreskin pulling back. It's so gratifying when Quentin licks his lips like he's imagining it in his mouth.

"I want it in me."

He wants that too. He has ridiculous and territorial thoughts about having Quentin that way and he wants Quentin's soft moans in his ear as he takes it all. "It'll take a long time to get ready."

"I know. Hours. Do we have hours?"

"Yes."

Quentin leans forward. "I want you in my mouth."

"Your turn first?"

Quentin nods. "Yeah."

"Condom, or—"

"I'd prefer without." He tears his gaze away from Eliot's dick and looks up. "If that's okay with you."

"More than okay. And you didn't ask but we have prophylactic spells. They're very effective."

"Okay. Good. Come here."

Eliot's face glows. He's smiling as he comes within reach, and a laugh escapes him as Quentin grabs him by the hips and pulls him closer.

"Finally," Quentin says, and Eliot cocks his head.

"Q, are you a size queen?"

Quentin tips his head back to smile up at him. "Technically no. But yes. Oh fuck, you have a gorgeous dick." Quentin curls his hand around the shaft and opens his mouth.

Eliot braces himself for teeth. Instead Quentin closes his wet, hot mouth over the tip and sucks, his tongue working and—

"Oh fuck."

Quentin stops and smiles up at him, then goes right back to hollowing his cheeks and taking as much as he can. He wraps his hand around Eliot's balls and pulls them down just a little—

"More. Pull harder." And _fuck, oh fuck me_ Eliot needs something to hold onto because Quentin is a damn good cocksucker. He had boyfriends. Eliot wants to thank them. But Quentin draws back to just the tip and loves on the head of Eliot's dick with his tongue.

"Oh fuck, Quentin. That's so good."

He can't go down very far. But Quentin uses his hand and mouth at the same time and Eliot's going to have a hard time not coming right where he stands. Quentin does it like he's reading Eliot's mind, coating his hand in spit and jerking him at the perfect rhythm, just like fucking. 

Quentin bobs his head and squeezes his hand and moans like it's delicious and Eliot's cock throbs. He's so hard. It feels so good, and when Quentin picks up speed Eliot's digging his toes into the rug and if everyone in the cottage can hear him right now he doesn't care.

"I'm gonna come," he warns.

Quentin slides back. "Can you do it again?"

"Yes."

Quentin pops right back on Eliot's dick, slurp-sucking, fist pumping, and it hits him in the pit of his stomach, hot and tight-flexed. He's wound so taut that when his cock and balls clench and release, he shouts.

Quentin swallows around his cock, and it's almost too much to handle as Eliot comes in pulses that bolt up his body. When it's over, he's trembly and awash in a warm golden feeling that bends him over to kiss Quentin long and slow. 

"You were surprised," Quentin says.

"I was prepared to be encouraging."

"That's a nice way of saying you were surprised." Quentin pulls him down so they're both on the bed and in each other's arms. 

"My turn now. Get comfortable. I think you'll like this."

"What is it?"

Eliot grins. "My favorite thing."

 

39\. Slow

 

"Eliot," Quentin gasps. "Oh fuck, oh fuck, I'm gonna come." 

He pushes his cock up into Eliot's mouth, then jams himself down on three of Eliot's slippery fingers, lost between the sensations. Eliot lifts his head and keeps his hand still and Quentin groans in frustrated lust. "It isn't fair."

"Trust me." Eliot strokes his shaking legs open. "When you finally do it, it's amazing."

"I'll get you back for this."

"I hope you do." Eliot says. "I'm not kidding. Edging, a little light bondage—"

"You'd let me tie you up?" 

"Yes. And you can speak coherently. Shall I go on?"

Quentin nods, and closes his eyes as Eliot slips three fingers back inside. "Now I'm going to start slow," Eliot says. "And warn me if you're about to come."

Quentin nods. "But I'm ready now, yeah? We can—I need you in me. I'm ready." 

Eliot makes a noncommittal sound and buries Quentin's cock in his mouth. Quentin gives a loud cry and tries to stay still, to just relax and enjoy it.

He starts out well, but he forgets to just relax into the sensations, rocking his hips to get Eliot's fingers deeper. Quentin's impatient. He wants everything, everywhere, now. He's like a starving man at a banquet, as sensitive as a theremin, and Eliot knows Quentin likes a hard, fast pace but this is something different. 

"Slow," Quentin gasps, and then, "Oh, fuck."

Because Eliot's not making this easy. He curves his fingers up just to hear Quentin lose all the air in his lungs in one explosive gasp. His legs go stiff and his butt rises off the bed just a little.

"Gonna come, Eliot, I'm gonna—" 

Eliot stops, again, and again Quentin writhes and makes the most agonized noise. 

"Oh goddamnit!" He sits up and stares balefully at Eliot. "Last time," he says. "Fuck, I can't take any more."

"Okay." Eliot levers himself up to kiss Quentin, and the stitches in his chin stretch a little painfully. He doesn't care, though, and as Quentin slowly lets himself lie back, Eliot stretches out to cover him.

"You're ready. But we're going—"

"Slow."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"I know." Quentin kisses his mouth again. "Because you love me."

"I'm in love with you."

Quentin's eyes flutter closed as he lets the words sink down into his skin. "Do it." He raises his knees and lets them fall open. 

Eliot feels around the bed for the condom, but Quentin holds it up between two fingers. The package is open in a flash, the tip lubed with a hasty cantrip. 

Slow. Slow it down. Make it good. Eliot barely nudges against Quentin's ass, holding his hips still so he can't get eager and hurt himself. Quentin bites the corner of his lip and goes loose and relaxed, letting go.

The tiniest push, and Quentin's already gone tight enough that Eliot stops moving to let him get used to the feeling before moving a little more, until Quentin's groaning at the stretch and Eliot's pushing—"too much?"

"More," Quentin says. "Oh fuck, you're big."

Oh, the sight of Quentin's face. The tiniest tension between his eyebrows, his mouth open on every breath and small sound, and when he opens his eyes they're so dark Eliot feels like he could fall in them forever—then his eyelids flutter shut as he whispers Eliot's name. 

It shivers down Eliot's back. "I'm in love with you."

"Eliot." He tilts his head back, baring his throat, and Eliot kisses just under his jaw and down the thundering pulse in his neck. "Fuck. It's so good."

"You like it?"

"I love it. Move in me. Just a little bit."

Eliot moves, but slowly. Quentin bites his lip again and it's so fucking cute. Eliot knows he's smiling like an idiot. 

And sure enough, Quentin opens his eyes and smiles back. "What?—Ah, ah, yeah, fuck—"

It's going easier now, and Eliot slides deeper inside and it's just so good. Quentin's so hot inside, and he's open now, relaxed enough that with easy, gentle moves Eliot slides all the way inside, and Quentin opens his eyes, his face alight.

Eliot moves. Slow and gentle, and Quentin tries to urge him to go faster. He will, but not yet. Not until Eliot's soaked in the feeling of being deep inside and he's ready to let his endurance spell go.

"Go deep. Kiss me."

Eliot stretches along Quentin's body and kisses him, soft and achingly sweet. Quentin wraps his arms around Eliot, dragging the pads of his fingers down Eliot's back until Eliot shivers.

"Fuck, I love kissing you," Eliot says.

"Mm. We should do it again."

Eliot brushes kisses over Q's collarbones, down his chest to his nipples, and Quentin likes that so much Eliot lingers over them, curling his back so he can reach until Quentin squirms and rolls his hips. 

Eliot lifts his head. "Are you ready?"

"Yes. Fuck me. Fast, fast—"

Anything he wants. Eliot makes the bed shake as he gives Quentin exactly what he wants, and Quentin loves every second of it. 

"Fuck, yes!" Quentin grabs his cock and strokes it, gasping at the feeling. Eliot's back aches, but he won't stop. Not until Quentin's ready. Not while Quentin's so lost his eyes go unfocused. 

"Love me," Quentin whispers. 

"I'm in love with you."

And as soon as Eliot says it, Quentin comes. His eyes go wide, and then shut tight as all that denial, all that frustration Eliot had dammed up releases. 

Eliot lets go of his spell and rushes to catch up. "I'm in love with you," he says. "Fuck. Gonna come—"

Eliot's so overcome by the gentle, joyful look on Quentin's face it floods him with feelings. Bliss. Happiness. And that persistent full body rush that pushes him right over the edge. 

The combination knocks him flat, resting in Quentin's arms as the world slowly comes back and takes on meaning. Quentin holds him as he gets his wind back, gets his wits back, but he doesn't want to move. Just lay right here, exhausted and happy and spent.

When he can command his body to move again, he turns his head and kisses Quentin just over his heart. Quentin lifts a lazy hand to stroke Eliot's shoulder.

"That was fucking amazing."

"I thought you'd like it."

"Big fan."

"Good." Eliot kisses him again. "I'll be right back."

He disappears into the bathroom and comes back with a warm washcloth, and gently swipes at Quentin's face, his neck, and over his body.

"You think of everything," Quentin says with a smile.

"Details are important." Eliot smiles as he says it. "Do you want to eat?"

"I want you." Quentin turns to his side and flips the pillows over.

Eliot spoons around Quentin, wrapping him up in his arms. The back of his neck is right there, waiting to be kissed, and Quentin murmurs an approving noise.

"That was amazing."

"Was it like you hoped?"

"Fuck, yes. I am absolutely a size queen."

They laugh and Eliot kisses Quentin's shoulder. "You feel good."

"You feel good," Quentin says. "Very protective."

"Do you mind?"

"No. I like mattering to you that much."

"You do. Matter, I mean."

Quentin stays quiet, the tension in his shoulder betraying his thinking.

"You're worrying about something."

"Yeah," Quentin says. "Did it ever get weird? With feelings."

Eliot thinks about it. "No. I think the feelings are doing just fine."

Quentin turns over, facing Eliot. "Mine too." He smiles. "And I think I need a drawer."

"I think you might need two."


	14. forty, forty-one, forty-two

40\. Idyll, interrupted 

The afternoon’s long slanting light through the trees brightens Eliot’s manuscript page. The portable Royal perched on a folding card table makes a satisfying thump as he hammers on the keys, finishing the sentence and coming to a blank space in his mind where sentences ought to be. The sway and creak of Quentin swinging in the hammock blends with the rustle of the leaves, and Eliot peeks from his page to watch him stretched out in the net-woven sling with his ankles crossed, pillowing his head on one bent arm and holding open a much-worn copy of _The Girl who Told Time._ He turns a page and reads, a little squint drawing his eyebrows together. Cut grass and slow-smoked briskets cooking in the smoker perfume the air. Eliot smiles and turns to his half-typed page, considering the prose.

It’s okay, but he takes the pen out from between his teeth and fixes a misplaced modifier. Étaín is currently fleeing a patrol, using the handful of cantrips she’s learned to wise advantage, but she has to be captured regardless, and Eliot can’t figure out how.

He winds up watching Quentin again, but this time he looks up from the page. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Eliot says around his pen. “More lemonade?”

“Time for a break?”

“Definitely.”

Quentin scoots over to the side as Eliot kicks off his loafers and settles in. “Give me a foot.”

“Is it foot rub time again?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Quentin stretches out and smiles. “My life is so hard.”

Eliot digs his thumbs into the sole in tiny circles. “A regular trial.”

Quentin slips a bookmark between the pages and closes his eyes. “Enforced relaxation.” The smile falters.

“You’re worried.”

“It’s going so slowly.” 

“But it’s still going,” Eliot points out. “You just have to give it time.”

“And you’re missing classes.”

“Well, at least I’m not teaching one. I don’t think enhanced mixology is going on the curriculum any time soon anyway.”

“I think you could teach this,” Quentin says, and from the sweeping gesture over his body, he means the shield protecting him, every little interlocked cell tiled over his body. “I mean. I can’t see it but everyone seems impressed.”

“I don’t know if I could explain it to someone.”

“Teach me? When I’m better? If you can teach me you can teach anyone.”

“Okay.”

“Good.” The smile’s back, the dappled light sliding over his face as the hammock sways. A breeze shivers the leaves overhead, and a few golden leaves fall, spinning gently as they drift to the grass. “Is writing going okay? You didn’t type much.”

“I’m trying to figure out a scene.”

“What’s the scene?”

“Do you really want to hear me rattle on about my novel?” Eliot jokes. “Really. Because I will. So you better be sure.”

“Yes.” Quentin wiggles his toes and rocks the hammock a little faster. “I’m angling for my name in the dedication.”

“It’s a chase scene. Étaín is trying to hide in a forest from the Sorcerer-Queen’s elite troops. She’s being a little too clever, though, and I’m trying to find a way to realistically capture her without hammering down the plot.”

“What if she gets away?”

“The trouble is, I need her to get captured so she can find out what the Sorcerer Queen wants. She doesn’t know yet, and she doesn’t know why everyone she’s seen so far has scarred up faces.”

“Because of the prophecy.” Quentin wrinkles his nose as he says it.

“I know prophecies are really 20th century doorstopper fantasy but it’s Irish. I need a prophecy.”

“You don’t have to tell me. But are you sure she has to be captured? What if she gets help from an ally, and then finds out what's up with the scarred faces?”

“Ooh. You’re a good muse.”

“Back to writing?”

“No.” The hammock’s swing, the smell of nearly-done brisket, the breeze and shade softening the heat of a summer that’s not ready to give up yet—“This is a perfect moment.”

“Yeah,” Quentin agrees. “Let’s do it again tomorrow.”

They could do it again forever. “As you wish.”

That makes Quentin smile again. “Can I read it when you’re done?” 

“The manuscript?”

“Yeah. I’m curious.”

He wants Quentin to read it. He wants to hide it somewhere Quentin will never find it. Right now, the story of Étaín is completely unchanged by the act of someone other than Eliot reading it, and breaking that seal is terrifying. Right now, it could be the most brilliant story ever written or the most tragic dross committed to a page, but—

“Don’t show it to me until you’re ready,” Quentin says. “But I’m interested. So if you want someone to read it, I’m here.”

“Okay. Not yet.”

“Thank you,” Quentin says. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”

It makes Eliot feel like a sunbeam just fell on him, and he thinks of the beautiful classic six room apartment in manhattan Quentin dreamed about. It’s like he has to write it, now—that Étaín is a part of their future, a sign that they will still be together after Brakebills. It makes sense that Quentin gets to read it, that the story will become a part of him, too.

Quentin tilts his head. “You’re smiling at me.”

“I am.”

“You’re thinking about being back there.”

Eliot knows he means the dream. “Yes.”

“I am too. Sometimes I wonder if—“

“Quentin!" an unwelcome voice calls from the cottage. "I need to talk to you—oh.”

Alice stands in the sliding door to the patio, and Quentin waves her over. “Hey, Alice. How was class?” 

“It was fine.” the heels of Alice Quinn's shoes thump against the wooden deck. “I’m lending Julia my notes so she has double copies and we’re going to lend you our notes for when you can come back to class.”

This angry growling tension is stupid. It’s stupid. Eliot smiles and reaches for Quentin’s other foot. “That’s really nice. Do you feel up to looking at notes, Quentin? Where’s it at on the stress scale?”

He thinks, and it puts tension in his face. “I shouldn’t get too far behind.”

“You’re already stressing out,” Eliot says.

“Because he doesn’t want to fail,” Alice says. “If you get too far behind you might have to re-take fundamentals, you might not know enough to do specialized classes—“

“Thank you, Hermione. Your opinion is noted.”

She stiffens at _Hermione_ and accelerates to full anger by the time Eliot flicks a dismissive hand to bat her opinion off the table. “This might be hard to understand for a slacker whose major is debauchery, but Quentin had no idea what he was before he came here. He’s not a natural like you—and he takes his education seriously.”

“I’m not supposed to do anything stressful,” Quentin says. “But you’re right. Ignoring it totally won’t help. I’d like to borrow your notes. Julia’s too.”

“Twenty minutes a day,” Eliot says. “Then see how you feel.”

“That’s not enough time.” Alice takes another step closer.

“No one asked you,” Eliot says. “Twenty minutes should be sufficient.”

“Half hour?” Quentin asks.

“Fine. But that’s a hard limit. No cramming. Now, if there’s nothing more—“

“I need to talk to Quentin.”

“You are talking to Quentin.”

“Alone.”

Alice sets her jaw and stares Eliot down. 

“Eliot?” Quentin bends his legs and sets bare feet in the freshly cut grass. “I’ll just be a minute.”

His smile’s too tight and he knows it. “Okay.”

They walk away but they stay in sight, and Eliot watches every move. Quentin stands with his shoulders high and forward, his hands fisted in his pockets as he listens to Alice, her blond hair shivering as she talks, going from looking down at the grass to gazing at Quentin, imploring. 

Quentin glances at him, gestures toward him, and Alice shakes her head, but Quentin puts his hand on her shoulder and the urge to twist his fingers in the eavesdropping spell is so strong Eliot tucks his hands under his thighs to fight it. 

They turn back. Quentin leads the way; Alice walks with her shoulders square as castle walls, her chin jutting forward as if she’s cutting her path back to Eliot with it. 

Quentin slides back onto the hammock and sets it swaying before he says, “We have to take Alice to Brooklyn when we go get Julia’s stuff.”

Eliot cocks his head. “What’s in Brooklyn?”

“That’s my business.”

“Uh uh. I’m not taking anyone off the grounds without knowing why they need to go. So give it up.”

“She’s trying to find out what happened to her brother,” Quentin says. “Charlie Quinn died here, and no one will tell her what really happened.”

“Well. Nancy Drew found a lead.” 

“Eliot.”

Eliot shrugs. “Sorry. I do enjoy a good sleuthing but I require something more before I agree. What do you want to do with this information?”

Alice glares at him. “That’s none of your business.”

Eliot laces his fingers together behind his head. “No deal.”

“You don’t need to know what I—“ 

“You’ve involved Quentin, whose safety is absolutely my business. I want to know if you plan on doing anything stupid, and if so, how stupid. But I can guess, if I put myself in your terribly uncomfortable shoes…”

Alice says nothing, her eyebrows rippled in a fierce scowl.

“You want closure,” Eliot says. “You want to know the truth so you can lay your grief to rest. You want to say goodbye, that you love him, that you’re sorry….even though it can’t possibly be your fault.”

She looks at the ground. “Are you happy now?”

“I need more privacy and less clothing for that. But very well, Miss Quinn. We’re headed to West 46th and I don’t know of a portal from there to Brooklyn so we’ll have to use mundane means to get to your leg of the trip.”

“You mean the subway?”

Eliot scoffs. “Please. I’m sure I can find a spare BMW lying around.”

 

41\. A life for beauty - CW disordered eating behaviors, suicidal ideation and attempt

 

_"You stole it!?"_

Alice's voice blasts out of the open windows and Eliot powers them closed. "I certainly didn't mean _my_ spare BMW. Maybe next time you could try caterwauling about stolen cars in front of a cop. You know. For maximum stupid."

"I'm an accessory. You're committing a felony."

Quentin leans against the back of Eliot's seat. "It'll be okay, Alice. We're not taking it to a chop shop. The police will find it and return it."

Julia leans into the middle space and pats Alice's shoulder. "Think of it as Air BnB for cars. Only free."

"This is completely irresponsible!"

"One more complaint out of you and you lose shotgun," Eliot says. "You needed to go to Brooklyn. I am taking you, since you convinced Quentin to ask me, and I don't like saying no to Quentin. You're supposed to be navigating. Navigate."

Alice drops her gaze to Eliot's iPhone. "You need to cross at the Brooklyn Bridge to Tillary Street."

"Thank you." Eliot dials up the music and slips into the correct lane, marking the dog-walker stepping into the intersection. Eliot taps out the beat on the steering wheel and takes the car around the lowest curving point of Manhattan, getting over to the left.

"But the bridge is the other way."

"Access is this way," Eliot says. "Trust me, Wonderland. I've driven stolen cars into Brooklyn before."

Julia breaks in before Alice can react. "Who are we meeting?"

Alice looks at her paper. "I found her in a yearbook sitting with Charlie. A woman named Emily Greenstreet."

Eliot startles. "What, the supermodel?"

"I don't think so," Alice says doubtfully. "She doesn't look like the model type. She withdrew from classes after Charlie died, but they were in specialized classes together, and—"

"How did you find that out?" Eliot asks. "Student records are confidential."

Alice goes red. "I had to know."

"Oho," Eliot says. "Seems I'm not the only break and enter artist in this car."

"I put the records back," Alice groused.

"And I park the undamaged car somewhere safe for the police to find."

"Fine. We're both criminals driven by altruistic needs."

"Now I feel validated," Eliot says, and darts across two lanes to empty out onto Tillary St. "What's next?"

"Right turn onto Park Avenue, fast left to Myrtle avenue."

"Traffic's stop and go," Eliot comments. "When is she expecting you?"

"I couldn't get in touch with her."

"So we're going in cold?" Eliot sighs and trips his turn signal. "That's super."

"I didn't want her to spook," Alice says. "Everyone just clamps their mouth shut when I try to ask."

"All right. Not that four strangers at the door are in any way a stress free experience. Perhaps we need a strategy. I will do the talking. And you will break in at precisely the right moment, all big blue eyes and pathos about your brother when she's about to slam the door in our faces. Tears will help, but the bit where you look all vulnerable and about to cry might be even more effective."

"Eliot," Quentin says from the back seat.

"Yes, sweetie?"

Quentin can't help smiling at the ridiculous pet name. "Keep helping, but nicer."

"Yes, dearest." He kisses the air in front of Quentin's reflection in the rear view mirror. "Everybody out."

It's a simple tut to kill all the hair and transfer fibers and the oil from their fingertips. "Once someone stole the car I stole when I dipped into a salon for a haircut. I never leave evidence behind after that. Showtime, Wonderland. You nervous?"

Alice darts a wide-eyed look at him. "Yes."

"Good. Lean into it. I mean it though," Eliot says as he swoops into a spot on the street. "Let me start. Come in on your cue. The contrast will win her over."

Eliot leads the way across the street to an old red brick factory converted to luxuriously gentrified lofts. No doorman, for which Eliot sighs in relief. He points at the door lock and scoffs, twisting it open with his power. "It's not even warded. You might as well have just propped the door open with a brick. This way, ducklings."

They climb stairs and Eliot fuzzes out all the cameras gazing at their route to apartment 3H. He knocks, and the sound of a beginner practicing acoustic guitar falters. He pastes a pleasant expression on his face for the peephole, which blackens for a second before the door opens on a goddess.

Emily Greenstreet might be able to walk down the street unaccosted if she went out makeup-less like this, but some things you just can't hide even from casual passers-by. She's nearly as tall as Eliot, her hair tinted to a shimmering, hand painted strawberry blonde, her curls allowed to riot around her uncanny, symmetrical face. 

"Hi," Eliot says. A stunning start, indeed. "I'm Eliot Waugh. I'm from Brakebills University of Magical Pedagogy. I believe you're an alumni."

He already wedged the door open with his power, but she tries to shove it shut anyway. "Go away."

"We just need to ask a few questions about something that happened when you were a student—"

"Charlie," Alice says. "It's about Charlie Quinn."

Emily's eyes widen, and she shoves on the door even harder. "Go away."

"Please," Alice says, and Eliot puts a comforting hand on her shoulder as her voice cracks under the weight of unshed tears. "I'm Alice Quinn. I'm Charlie's sister. Please. No one will tell me anything."

"Alice?" The door opens wider. "Didn't they tell you?"

"They said he died in a magical accident."

Emily lifts one hand to her mouth, and even her fingers are beautiful--long and elegant and delicate, perfect pink nails cut short to practice clumsy guitar. "Oh Alice. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me."

"Why?"

"Because it's my fault he's dead," Emily says. "If it weren't for me, your brother would still be alive."

"Maybe we shouldn't have this discussion in the hall?" Eliot asks. "We might attract attention."

Emily opens the door and lets everyone inside a minimalist, monochromatic loft apartment. The only color is from the green stems in an enormous close-up photograph of a bouquet of white orchids resting in a clear glass vase. She picks up a black and white cushion and hugs it to her middle, gesturing at the others to sit anywhere. Alice takes the chair across from Emily, sitting in it with her perfect, upright posture and folds her hands into white-knuckled politeness.

"You're Emily Greenstreet."

Emily sighs. "Yes. And Charlie was...he was so sweet and so kind. And he should be alive right now, not me. I'm so sorry."

"Tell me what happened."

"I...I didn't always look like this," Emily says. "I was different."

"You were," Alice says. "That's it, isn't it? You tried to make yourself beautiful."

"You don't know what it's like," Emily says. "I've seen your baby pictures. You were always beautiful. And you look so much like Charlie, I can hardly stand it. And if I knew the truth—"

Eliot's chest twinges. "I was eighty pounds soaking wet and my nose took up half my face growing up."

"But you grew out of it," Emily says. "I was just...ugly."

"Not ugly," Alice said. "A little plain, maybe."

"That's what pretty people say to ugly people when they're trying to be nice. Or that a little makeup works wonders. I've heard it before. People don't really see you when you're nothing to write home about. I didn't even have a good personality."

"But the magic worked," Eliot says. "You must be very good--oh."

Emily shakes her head. "The spells are dangerous. But what was the use of having magic if I couldn't use it to make things better? And Charlie--he caught me. Throwing up. Logging calories and exercise. He told me that I didn't need to change anything and I couldn't hear what he was telling, me. I just knew that if I tried hard enough, I could become perfect, and I didn't understand what he meant—"

She's even beautiful when she cries. Tears spill from her eyes, sliding over sharp cheekbones and down her long, swanlike neck. "I practiced. I studied and researched and discounted anything that didn't have two sources. I was careful. I did everything right, down to the astrological minute. And it--I failed. I made it worse. I went from ugly to monstrous and—"

But she isn't monstrous, unless beauty is a peculiar kind of monster. "And Charlie helped you."

"Charlie found me in front of the fountain. I couldn't do it in front of him. I couldn't let him see what I had done to my face, not him. Not the person I wanted to—I just wanted to be pretty," Emily whispered, the sound tight-throated and airless. "I wanted him to look at me and see someone he could love—"

Eliot knows where this is going, and he reaches for Quentin's hand, the comfort of touching him, knowing that he's right there. 

Emily hugs the pillow tighter. "He held me. He rocked me. And then he kissed me, and this light came down on us and it was warm and perfect and safe and then he just--turned into light. One second he was holding me, and the next, he was a pillar of light motes rising into the sky and I was, I was like this. And then I understood that he—"

"Loved you," Eliot says. "He loved you. And he gave everything to make you what you wanted."

Emily wipes at her glittering, tear-filled eyes. "I headlined Calvin Klein during Fashion Week. I have three different campaigns booked before new years. I'm the cover of January's Elle. I'm doing a perfume commercial with Sean o'Pry--and I can't waste what Charlie gave me even though I wake up every day and want to die."

Alice finally stirs. "He died to make you beautiful. He died because he loved you."

"And I'd give it all back in a heartbeat."

"Would you?" Alice asks. "How much research have you done on time magic, exactly?"

Emily goes pale.

"You're a magician. You researched your ass off to design a beauty spell. You could have gone back," Alice says. "You could have reset the timeline and gone back to when you were a butterface and you would have had Charlie and Charlie's love. But you didn't do that. You never wanted Charlie's love. That's just something you say while you pose for photos."

Emily flinches. "How can you say something so cruel?"

"Because you deserve it," Alice says. "You're alive and Charlie is dead and you're right. It is your fault. I've got to go. I can't be in the same room as you."

She pushes herself out of the chair and hurries out of the apartment.

Eliot turns to Emily. "She's still grieving."

Emily nods. "She'll never stop."

"Are you going to be okay?" Julia asks. "I don't--what my friend said was pretty harsh."

"I deserved it." Emily says. "You better go after her."

"But are you going to be okay?" Julia asks.

She nods, sniffing back tears. "I'll be fine."

Eliot keeps his mouth shut and lets her have the lie.

#

They find Alice standing next to the BMW, scribbling in a pocket-sized notebook. "I've been visiting the Van Pelt fountain every day. Now I know why--it's where Charlie died," Alice says. "And I just ran the calculations with my ephemeris app. The moon's in a bad phase but there's a parallel aspect from Venus and the Moon to Pluto and that's suitable for a working. Q. You have to help me."

"I can't," Quentin says. "I can't cast."

Alice's face scrunches upwards, her brow lined in worried furrows. "Shit. You can't. How long until—"

"No one knows," Eliot says. "It could be a couple of months. And you know that the further into October we go, the riskier chthonic conjurations become—"

"I have to talk to him," Alice insists. "I can't wait. There's no time."

"What's so important?" Eliot asks. 

"I just have to."

"Well, if certain eastern religious views on life and death are correct, he might be reincarnated already. You might not be able to. What if you summon him and he doesn't come?"

"I'll deal with that if it happens," Alice says. "But the safest spell needs two people."

"Quentin can't do it," Eliot says, "and I won't. It's not worth the risk—"

"I'll help you," Julia says. "Quentin can't, but I can. What do I have to do?"

 

42\. Don't you forget about me

 

Eliot argues with Alice and Julia all the way up to Yonkers, but they won't budge.

"It's too dangerous," Eliot says. "It's advanced magic. And you might be good, Wonderland, but Julia's a baby freakin' bird and you should not be dragging her into this shit."

"Hey now. Baby bird?"

"You are," Eliot says. "You're a pack of first years. You think you can kick over mountains and do whatever you want and you are forcing me to be the responsible adult of this party and I resent it. But seriously. Don't do it."

"What if it was you?" Alice demanded. "What if it was someone you loved and they don't even have a grave? What if you never got the chance to say what you needed to say? What if you had a question only they could answer?"

Eliot doesn't say anything, but his hands go ice-cold at Alice's words, and he glances at Quentin, quiet in the front seat. He hears the engine push itself and then automatically change into the new gear. Automatics are boring, but no one buys a luxury sedan with a stick. "What kind of question do you need to ask your brother?"

"I don't want to tell you."

"Fair. But the point remains that you don't have the experience to protect Julia and cast a spell you just learned that conjures the dead next to a fountain with an honest to God body count. What if you get bonus ghosts? What if you trip up whatever glum mojo drives people to throw themselves into the thing? Who's going to keep you safe?"

Quentin speaks up. "You can."

Eliot shakes his head. "No. I'm keeping _you_ safe. That's my job. The one I volunteered for. I'm already busy."

"Eliot."

"Look. You want to help your friend and I get that, but I'll have to be there when they do the spell."

"You'll have to be there anyway," Quentin says. "I'm going with them."

"What? No! You can't."

"Why not?"

"Because if they get into trouble, you're going to help. And to help, you'll cast a spell. And if you cast a spell, you'll stop the regeneration process."

"That's right," Quentin says. "So you need to protect them so I don't have to cast."

"Quentin, Eliot's right," Julia says. "If this goes wrong—"

"It won't go wrong," Alice says. "He wants to see me too. I know it. I feel it every time I stand there. I have to do this before the equinox, right? For maximum safety. That means I have until the 23rd. That's not enough time, and the aspects aren't as strong as they are tonight."

"Eliot," Quentin says. "This is a terrible idea. But they're going to do it anyway. We should help them."

"But if you cast, or if something goes wrong—"

"Shield me. Strongest shield you can," Quentin says. "I'll stand way back. You can ward me. Tight as you can. Then I'll be safe enough that you can concentrate on them."

"I shouldn't do this."

"Please, Eliot."

Eliot huffs out a loud sigh. "You're supposed to use my willingness to do anything for you to get the kind of sex you like."

"That's after," Quentin says. "I still owe you for last night."

Eliot glances Quentin's way. "Really."

"Just say yes, already," Alice says. "I don't want you there, but you have a point. We need you. So please. Help me one more time."

"Fine," Eliot huffed. "You owe me, Wonderland. And not sex."

"Fine."

Eliot parks in the same shady lot as the first night, when Quentin told him the truth about Julia. He holds Quentin's hand and leads his chain of reckless, stupid, daring baby ducks through the portal on onto the wide open lawn in front of Brakebills. 

"Go get your stuff," Eliot says to Alice and Julia. "I'm going to ward Quentin up, make sure he doesn't wind up paying for your bright idea."

Alice hurries across the lawn and Julia follows her, walking shoulder to shoulder, their quiet voices carrying across the night. Quentin doesn't let go of Eliot's hand, and there's something about the way he flexes his fingers, interlaced with Eliot's, that makes him turn to look. Quentin's pensive, a little frown dug between his brows. Thinking. Worrying.

"What is it?"

He looks up. "Why do you love me?"

"Because you're amazing."

"But I'm not—"

"What?"

"I'm a total nerd," Quentin says. "Throw a ball at me and I duck. And I know you said I was cute but—"

"You don't feel cute," Eliot says. 

"Yeah."

"But you are."

"But I'm not like, like you. You're so—"

Eliot stops and turns to him. "Quentin. It's orthodontics and a good hairdresser and Margo's impeccable taste. I showed up to campus in a Muse t-shirt and nonskinny jeans."

"I can't imagine that," Quentin says. "I always think of you as you are."

"I am that," Eliot says. "Just like you are your soft sweaters and pretty hair and stylish shoes. Listen to me. I think you're cute. So is your total nerdness."

"I know what she meant, though. How no one bothers to look at you if you're not—"

"Here." Eliot fishes his wallet out of his back pocket and opens it up to his driver's license. "Me, four years ago."

Quentin squints at Eliot's unsmiling face, at the awkward glasses and the mushroom head of curls and the general disaster he was before he got to Brakebills. He hands it back. "No one looks good in their driver's license photo."

"You're being nice."

"Okay. You look like a dork."

"I'm still that dork," Eliot says. "Underneath the hair and the clothes. I'll always be that dork. Inside, Emily Greenstreet's still loathing herself. Julia probably still sees what she looks like in braces. Only Wonderland's gone through life liking what she saw in the mirror every morning."

"I don't know why you dislike her so much."

"I don't really understand it either. You said you weren't into her."

Quentin shrugs. "I can see how I could be. Like, in another reality where I never met you and you never tried to—"

"Seduce you?"

"Yeah."

"There is no other reality where I meet you and I never tried that."

Quentin tilts his head back, shaking his hair out of his face. "Then I guess she never had a chance."

There's a soft, gleaming light in his eyes as he pushes up to stand on his toes and draw Eliot down. His kiss is gentle and it makes the corners of Eliot's mouth rise before he kisses Quentin back. 

"I'll try to be nicer to her."

"And maybe don't call her Wonderland."

"I think it's stuck now. I'll make it affectionate?"

"Fine. Where should I stand?"

#

Eliot's still weaving the wards around Quentin when Alice and Julia come back. He looks up as they set up a small copper pot full of herbs and wood chips. Alice stops and stares at the complex, layered wards Eliot's inspecting, reinforcing, re-weaving.

"Do you have enough layers on Quentin?"

"No."

Quentin stands in the middle of a ten thousand points of light. "You warded around my fingers."

"Can you move them?"

Quentin tries. "No."

"Perfect," Eliot says. "No chance you can tut, then."

He puts himself between Quentin and Julia and watches Alice chalk a circle around her and Julia, marking down glyphs to remind her of the correct lines of the verbal spell meant to call up the dead. Julia arranges stolen marigolds and hard candies around a photograph, and stands beside Alice, running through the gestures used in the spell.

"It's time," Alice says. "Are you ready?"

"No," Eliot says. "But go ahead."

Alice and Julia raise their hands and start casting. The spell they chant is in ancient Greek, calling to open the way to Hades and calling Charlie Quinn's name three times between each verse. Eliot stays still and alert for changes in the air, sniffing for the scent of an open grave, a chill on the breeze, a prickling at the back of his neck.

Nothing happens.

They stand in silence for a full minute. Then two, and the third minute ticks on as Julia turns to Alice. "Maybe we made a mistake."

"No mistake," Eliot says. "You said everything correctly. I'm afraid there was no one to summon."

"No. He wants to talk to me," Alice says. "He wouldn't move on before he told me the truth—"

"Alice," Julia says, so quiet. 

_"No."_

It's so fierce Eliot wants to step back. But Alice lifts her head, opens her mouth, and sings.

_"Won't you come see about me_

_I'll be alone, dancing--you know it baby"_

Eliot stays quiet. Music is one of the oldest summonings, a proven evocation connecting singer to listener across space and time and reality. Sung with heart and conviction, a song can accomplish the impossible. Alice's song is throaty with feeling, the emotion needed to fling a spell across miles, across reality to land in the intended's ears, and it makes the hairs on Eliot's neck rise and the air turns electric and warm--warm with power instead of the chill of the grave and he can feel it in his teeth like a note sung out of tune—

Whatever Alice had called to, it was coming.

It begins as a single spark floating down from inky starlit skies, gold to the night's silver. It makes the air throb with unimaginable power as the spark grows to a flame, a fire, a blazing terrible light, and from the light resolves an ordinary looking guy in jeans and a t-shirt, smiling in a way that wouldn't even comfort a shark.

_"Will you call my name?"_ the figure sings.

"Charlie," Alice breathes.

But no. No it is not. That's not Charlie. It might have been once, but everything human is gone from its eyes. Its form is not a body. It's an energy field. And it's made of nothing but magic.

"Charlie," Alice says. "It's you."

Charlie's form hovers in the air, glowing and golden. "What do you want? I was busy."

"It's me," Alice says. "Alice. I know what happened to you. I know how you died."

The Charlie thing cocks its head. "I never did."

"You did. Five years ago. You killed yourself for Emily Greenstreet."

"That's not what happened," it says. "But why did you call me?"

"To tell you I love you," Alice says. "And—"

The Charlie apparition lifts a hand and Alice stops speaking, stops moving. Beside her, Julia is frozen in place, her mouth open as if she were about to say something. "Love is the only magic I cannot harness. Therefore I have no use for it." Charlie sniffs the air. "What did you bring me? I smell another world. I smell…"

It turns its head toward Quentin and sniffs. "You."

It blinks out of sight and reappears in front of Quentin. "What's that smell? Time and Sorrow, and Sorrow again. What's that smell? Wing-dust and hunger and the soul of magic gone dark. Stone-dust and silver, peaches and plums...What's in your chest, mortal mageling? What lives inside you? What—"

Eliot flings a forcebolt before he can even think. His heart's in his throat and he's so nauseous it hurts and _that's no ghost._ Not a ghost or a revenant or a shade or a lich, it's worse, it's worse than that it's—

The niffin's head swivels slowly toward Eliot, its expression perturbed.

"Was that supposed to do something?"

"Leave him alone— "

The niffin flicks its fingers at Eliot, and he can't feel the ground under his feet any more. He's flying through the air, too high, too fast--he pushes out with his power, trying to stop his trajectory, but it stops when he collides with a tree with a force that sparks red-hot fiery pain in his shoulder. He shouts when he lands on the ground, and he can't move without bolts of pain shooting through him. It hurts when he breathes, bad enough that he knows something's broken. The niffin circles Quentin with the curiosity of a sack of cats.

"What is it? What's inside you?"

Quentin answers it, so calm, so brave. "It's a portal."

"How is it in you?"

"A spell," Quentin says. "They can't take it out without killing me."

"Death is boring. What does it do?"

"It leads to Fillory," Quentin says.

"Fillory? Fillory? What does it do when you're in Fillory? Does it lead back here?"

"I don't know," Quentin says. "But listen. Alice misses you. And she wants to know something important. Do you think you could tell her the answer?"

"No." He waves one hand and swats the question away. "This is interesting. What if I just—"

The niffin reaches through the wards as if they weren't there. The shield, Eliot's best shield, parts under the force of pure magic like flimsy netting and the niffin reaches inside Quentin's chest. "What if I channel into it, like this—"

Quentin screams in pain in the instant before he vanishes. The niffin cocks its head, watching something Eliot can't see. Quentin's gone. He's gone—"What did you do?"

The niffin turns to stare at him. "I activated the spell," it said. "It worked correctly. He translocated exactly as intended."

"You sent him to Fillory?"

The niffin shrugs. "Nothing else here is interesting," it says. "I'm going back to the tomb."

And then the niffin's gone, and Quentin's gone, and Alice screams as the spell releases her and Julia from its bonds. Eliot would scream too, but he can't get a breath that doesn't stab deep into his chest. 

Quentin's gone. If the niffin told the truth, he's in Fillory right now.

And so is the Beast.


	15. forty-three, forty-four, forty-five

43\. No time to grieve

 

"It's my fault," Alice whispers for the fiftieth time. She shrugs Julia's hand off her shoulder, isolating herself from comfort as she huddles on the corner sofa in the common room. "I should have listened to you. I should have listened."

Eliot tests his freshly healed shoulder. It's maybe a bit sore, but that's a long way from broken. He sets two fingers of scotch poured over freezing cold basalt stones in front of Alice. "I'm not going to say this isn't your mess, Wonderland, but we don't really have time to drown in self-recrimination. Drink up. Get it together. Quentin's in Fillory without a shield, I have to go after him, and I don't have time to wipe your tears."

Alice sniffles. "You're right. I don't deserve to cry. I don't—"

"Yes, you do. But tell it to take a number," Margo says. "Get your tits out and use that big brain of yours. How do we get to Fillory?"

"We?"

Margo swivels to stare him down. "You think I'm going to let you cock this up alone?"

"Bambi," Eliot says, and it's almost too much to hold back. He can't cry. He can't scream. He can't fall to pieces. He sips his mint and melon muddled seltzer and keeps his shit together, because Quentin needs him, and there's no time for selfish crap like grief.

"I'm going too," Julia says. "Quentin knows the _Fillory and Further_ books inside and out, but so do I. Besides, I built the portal anchor inside Quentin. I might be able to figure out how to connect to it—"

"You'll kill him if you do that."

Julia shakes her head. "I meant, follow it like a beacon. On foot. Nothing more."

"I have to go too," Alice says. "I made this mess. I have to fix it."

Eliot is so tired. He needs to lie down, to wrap himself around a pillow and sleep, but if he tries he will just lie awake, his anxious stomach muscles washboard tight, his thoughts blurring into mud. He's tired, and he's sick of listening to Alice fall apart when he hasn't even let his eyes water. "I don't need your self-loathing,. I need your skills. What do you bring to the table?"

Alice straightens her back and sighs out a calming breath. "I'm a phosphoromancer. I can control light."

"And?"

Alice twists her fingers in a tut, and her whiskey glass disappears. "Is that useful enough for you?"

"Can you use it on yourself?"

Alice goes white.

"Eliot," Margo says.

Eliot winces. "Not what I meant. I mean, can you make it large enough to disappear a person?"

"Yes," Alice says. "If they don't move."

"I'm half sold. What else can you do?"

"Start fires. Magnify light to brighten a room, dim it so it goes full dark. I'm the closest thing to a battle-mage you have."

"Not actually true," a new voice says.

Penny and Kady stand on the threshold of the common room, not quite defying Eliot's order to the other physical kids to get out and stay out. 

"What's not true?"

Kady shrugs. " Penny said we had to come downstairs. He's going with you. I'm going with him."

Penny shrugs. "I heard you. I'm coming too."

"No," Eliot says. "I am deeply touched by you all, but this is getting out of hand. We don't even know how we're getting to Fillory."

"Me," Penny says.

"Him," Kady says, pointing at Penny. "He's a Traveler. I'm a battle-mage."

"Bullshit," Eliot says. "Brakebills doesn't train battle magic any more."

"Hedge witches still use battle magic. I had to pinky swear not to use it, but fuck that," Kady says. "Between Alice and her light magic, and your telekinesis, and me, we have a decent offensive force—"

"Margo's a cryomage," Eliot points out. "She can fight."

"So we're going with you. We swoop in thanks to Penny. We find Quentin using Julia's knowledge of Fillory. We've got firepower to spare. So we find him, and we get the fuck out as fast as possible. Sound like a plan?"

"We can't assume we'll bust in, find him in under an hour, and bust out," Julia objects. "We need to plan for eventualities. We need to be able to find shelter, feed ourselves, navigate without traveling in circles and getting lost—"

"Tell me you're not saying what I think you're saying," Margo says.

She is. And she's right. Eliot's ready to throw himself into another world with nothing in his pockets but a flask of vodka, but Julia's making sense. "I'm afraid she is, Bambi."

"Ugh! Okay. Okay. Fine. But you owe me."

Eliot kisses her cheek. "A week in Bali."

"At least. Fuck. I'm going to go pack."

Margo gets up and thunders up the stairs, slamming the door to her room.

"What just happened?" Alice asks. "Why is she mad?"

"Because we don't know what we're going to find in Fillory, and we have to be prepared." Eliot looks up as things slam and thump up in Margo's room. "So we're going camping. Everybody pack. If you don't have something, put it on a list. And tell me your shoe size. I'm going to rob a sporting goods store."

#

Eliot can't carry all this stuff by himself, and Julia used to jog every morning, so he runs with her across campus to a different portal gate, one that just goes up to Buffalo, where an ancient yellow pages tells him there's a sporting goods store one stolen Pontiac away.

It smells like an ashtray and Eliot wonders why it's simultaneously utterly rank and driving him crazy for the chance to light up. Julia watches him work the stick and drive through the empty streets. "A Sunbird?"

"No time to stay on brand," Eliot says, and a few minutes later they're in the parking lot. "Okay. Look for cameras. Do this."

Eliot teaches Julia the tut that fuzzes out their faces and she picks it up on the second try. Mack's Outdoor and Sporting Supply co. has no wards, and they're inside the dark shop in a heartbeat. The security system shorts out and goes silent at Eliot's command, and he's picking out gear.

"I liked camping," Julia says, and her choices reflect that--she picks out lightweight base layers for everybody, and Smartwool socks to go with the blister pads for the six purloined pairs of boots Eliot picks out. "Rain on a tent is the best sound, even if wet tents are the worst."

"I hated camping," Eliot says. "But I'm good at it."

"I used to make Quentin go every summer," Julia says. "Even the time I went to Junior Cowboy camp in Texas."

"He went to junior cowboy camp for you? That's love."

"I guess it is," Julia said. "Quentin's like living next door to your favorite cousin. We don't need fishing tackle, do we?"

But Eliot's not listening to Julia shop any more. He's staring at the gun wall.

They're locked through the trigger guards in glass cases, but Eliot knows these long, sleek and deadly weapons. Maybe they need one--no, they don't. They're magicians. He hates guns. And he never wants to kill anyone again.

But no matter how subtle the wizard, a bullet to the heart will seriously cramp his style. Magic can kill, but Eliot knows enough about wards to know that magic is easy to protect against. He should take one. He doesn't need it. But what if—

"I don't know if that's such a great idea," Julia says. "They're dangerous in the hands of an untrained—"

"I'm trained," Eliot says. "I'm good, even. I just don't know if I want to pick one up again."

"Even if it'll save Quentin's life?"

Every lock in the display case pops open.

 

44\. A browning and half a plan

 

Eliot and Julia are back by midnight with sturdy climbing rope and lightweight frame backpacks crammed full of the gadgets that looked useful. He piles the spoils on the deck and the backpacks go first. Everyone gets a coil of rope, a new pair of hiking boots and socks to go with them, and in an hour, everyone's weighed down by their own survival kits. No one wants to look at the long barrel and wooden stock of the Browning lever-action rifle Eliot carries on a strap, but he moves with it as if he'd still slung one over his shoulder regularly.

"You thought of everything," Penny says. "How'd you know to get all this stuff?"

Eliot shoves his hands in his pockets. "I've been camping before."

"Huh," Penny says. "You don't look like the camping type." 

He wasn't. Not even when his uncle and his father dragged him up north for deer season, but he hasn't forgotten any of it. "I'm full of surprises."

There's a look in Penny's eyes that saddens his smile. "It's lucky you know how to do this."

"Yeah. So how do we get to Fillory?"

Penny looks off to the left and scratches the back of his head. "Not sure yet."

"What do you mean, you're not sure yet? You said you could get us to Fillory."

"And I can. I just need to square away a few details."

 _Calm. Be Calm_. "What details?"

"I'm new to this traveling thing, all right? I stumbled across a, a liminal space that's connected to all the other realms."

"How?"

"It's called the Neitherlands," Penny says. "It's disorienting. There are all these fountains that go to other worlds, but they all look pretty much alike." 

"But you don't know which fountain goes where."

"Not yet," Penny says. "So that's step one. I just have to figure out the rest. That's it."

"We are leaving in fifteen minutes," Eliot says, marching into the kitchen. "It's time to start figuring."

"Fifteen minutes?" Julia asks. "And you're taking all the leftover brisket?"

Eliot bumps the door shut with his hip. "I smoked this brisket with my own two hands. Fuck. We need vodka."

"You're thinking about drinking?"

"I'm thinking about cleaning wounds. Sterilizing blades. And drinking. But not until we find Quentin. Everybody. Flasks out."

Margo's already got hers open. Eliot pours into a funnel with a trembling hand, tops up Penny, and Kady, and Alice doesn't have one so he rummages around in a drawer and finds extras.

"Are you sure we should go now?" Julia asks.

"Positive."

"But Penny doesn't know how to get us the rest of the way. You're tired and punchy and—"

"And Quentin's in Fillory. Unshielded. Magically drained. Alone, and the Beast has him right where he wanted him in the first place. I can work with tired. But Quentin's out there and I couldn't sleep if I tried—"

"Okay," Julia says. "I don't think I can set my tracking spell until we're in Fillory. But one thing at a time, okay? You're doing great. Don't fall apart on me now—"

"Eliot's not falling apart," Margo says. "He's just ultra bitchy when he's in charge."

"I'm not in charge."

"You kind of are," Julia says.

"We’ve been taking orders from you this whole time," Margo agrees. "Give me some of that brisket and let's go."

Go. Go where? Penny doesn't know how to get to Fillory, in spite of his boast - he's got half a plan and no real idea how to get the other half. Go to the Neitherlands, and then what? Pick a fountain and jump in? There's got to be a way to narrow it down, or—

He's halfway through making his sixth brisket and basil leaf sandwich when the light goes on. "Penny. When you go places on earth, how do you get where you want?"

Penny's eating sandwich one, and he shrugs. "I dunno, I just kinda do it."

"No. Say I wanted to go to Tokyo. You ever been there?"

"No."

"But you could go."

"Sure, easy."

"So how do you know where to go?"

Penny takes another bite and waves one hand in a circle. "Google Earth."

Eliot's hair stands on end. "Julia. Do the Fillory books have maps?"

 

45\. A sort of homecoming

 

Julia opens _The Girl Who Told Time_ to the map of Fillory, holding it up for Penny to see, but Penny shakes his head.

"This isn't gonna work."

"Why not?" Eliot demands. "You said you just needed a map. That's a map."

"Google Earth has satellite and street level photographs." Penny jabs a finger at the hand-drawn map. "This is amateur cartography. I don't trust it. I mean, who knows if it's even to scale? Or real? What if it’s just something an artist came up with to sell the books? We could wind up going miles off track. Landing in the ocean or in the middle of a volcano and trust me, you don't want that."

"But the map—"

"The map doesn't really mean anything. What the hell is the Brass City? I don't know. I've never seen it. I have to know where I'm going. Tokyo is seven thousand miles away, give or take. This, this is on another world."

"So we're back at square one."

"Maybe," Penny says. "Maybe not. Look. Let's go to the Neitherlands. Maybe the fountains are a puzzle or something, and one of you can figure it out. My money's on Alice."

"It's the best plan we have," Kady says. "Even if we have to jump in random fountains, trial and error style."

"Fine." Eliot puts his hands out to the sides, palm up. "Garbagecoven, assemble. Shoulder straps nice and firm? Pack belts fastened? Join hands, let's go."

His baby ducks gather around. Margo takes his hand, familiar and small in his. Julia takes the other, and soon they're a circle full of nervous energy, waiting for something to happen, like the rush of many wings or the sensation of falling.

Neither of these things happen. Eliot blinks, and in the time it takes to open his eyes, they're standing next to a round concrete water fountain. It's not warm or cold; there is no breeze. The silence makes Eliot hum a little just to make sure he can still hear.

The sky overhead is pewter-gray, billowing with pendulous clouds. Gray concrete, gray stones paving around the fountain--everything's washed out and dim, desaturated and unreal. The fountain has a statue in the middle depicting a woman in classical greek chiton. A goddess?

"This one's Earth," Penny says. "It dumps you onto the savannah in Kenya. Close enough to the Catskills, I guess."

Eliot marks it with chalk - an equal armed cross bounded in a circle. "Okay. If we get separated, I'm marking the path. Meet back here at the Earth fountain if we get separated or lost. Penny. What other fountains do you know?"

"This one—"

Penny leads the way past another circular fountain, coming to a halt. "Huh. The sculptures are different. That's the key."

"The sculpture gives us a hint about what world is on the other side? This one's a stack of books."

"Yeah don't...don't jump in there," Penny says. "It's creepy. Really angular and authoritarian. Lots of rules."

"Okay. so what is it?"

Penny rubs his upper arms as if he's cold. "It's a library."

Eliot draws the glyph of a book on the fountain, marking the concrete walls. "Where next?"

"I dunno. I hauled ass back to the Earth fountain because I—"

"Do you hear that?" Alice asks.

Eliot holds up one hand for quiet. Yipping, howling laughter like coyotes on the hunt. But the register's all wrong to be coyotes. These voices are _human_.

"Shit," Penny says. "Run."

"Why? What is that?"

But Penny's already running, Kady on his heels. "Cannibals."

"Canni--Run," Eliot says. "Move, move. High ground, narrow entrance. Go!"

He waits until Julia, Margo, and Alice are running, their new hiking boots crunching in the gravel. Eliot unslings his rifle—please, Jesus, don't make him use it—and brings up the rear, his head on a swivel looking for someplace to take cover. He's sick to his stomach as he works the lever, seating a bullet into the chamber.

They will kill him. They will kill and eat him. It's life or death. Eliot spies an opening in dense trees, and Penny's already headed that way, climbing the hill up to the copse. High ground. Narrow entrance. One box of bullets. It's a fight he can win, even if he doesn't want to fight it.

He breaks into the gap between two trees and raises the rifle. He didn't steal a scope. He sights, training the barrel to rest on the lead cannibal's chest. They're ragged and armed with knives and howling, chattering like beasts.

"Cannibals. Honest to shit cannibals, Penny? Way to bury the lede."

"Sometimes they don't come," Penny says. "I've only been here a couple times, I thought we had to gamble—"

"Quiet." Those are men running up that hill. They're monsters for what they do, not for what they are. Eliot bites on his lower lip, remembers he doesn't have to account for the wind, and fires.

The man in the lead falls like a whitetail in mid leap--suddenly knocked off course and crumpling to the ground. The cartridge casing flies out of the barrel, tumbling end over end to fall in the grass. Eliot watches it all from far away as pumps the lever, aiming at the next.

But he doesn't pass his comrade. He stumbles to a halt and grabs the bleeding, dying man by the shoulder, and he drags him a dozen feet before Eliot realizes those aren't screams of pain. The man he shot is howling in terror as the others gather round and help carry him, feebly kicking and bleeding in the grass. 

They don't even take him out of sight before they raise their knives.

Alice watches, her breath a terrified whistle in her throat. She covers her mouth with one hand and Eliot grabs her and pulls her into his chest, forcing her to look away.

"There's no time to be scared," He says. "We're cornered. We need a way out."

Alice clings to the front of his windshell. "They're butchering him."

"They wanted to do the same to us."

"I can zap us back to Earth—"

"Then we'll just have to come back," Eliot says. "Maybe if they're busy we can—"

"We need to get to Fillory," Julia says. "Maybe the map will work here."

"It won't," Penny says. "I have to see it to know where I'm going. The map isn't fillory--It's just a symbol."

Knowing you are about to die if you don't come up with a solution to escaping a pack of cannibals focuses the mind wonderfully. "You have to see it?"

"Yeah."

"How much of it? Does it matter how big? Does anyone have a mirror?"

Margo pulls out a compact. "This?"

Penny nods. "Yeah. Shit. That has to be big enough."

"Cast a viewing into Fillory into it."

Penny shakes his head. "I don't know that spell, man."

"I don't know it for Fillory," Margo says.

"I don't know it at all," Alice says. "You have to do it."

"I have a job. Shooting cannibals," Eliot says.

"Leave it to me," Kady says. "I can shoot."

"This is the part where you tell me you had four brothers, right?"

"Shit no," Kady says. "Mom taught me."

Eliot tilts the rifle point down and hands it to Kady, whose trigger etiquette is perfect. She trains the rifle on the clump of cannibals below, and Eliot tears his gaze away from the reddened, sickening sight and gazes into the mirror.

"I need light."

Alice answers with a globe floating overhead, illuminating the mirror. Eliot nods and puts out his hands, twisting them into a viewing screen. Quentin. Show me Quentin.

A video blue square floats from his hands, landing on the mirror Margo holds in the air. Inside are trees, a clearing, a cabin, the hint of something colorful hidden among the weeds. Something moves, just on the edge of the mirror's curve. Is it Quentin? 

"See it?"

"It's so small—"

A loud _POP!_ Makes everyone jump. More screams erupt from the monsters below. Kady pumps the lever and points the gun down the hill. "Hurry. They're coming."

"But you just shot one—"

Kady snarls. "I missed. Move!"

Hands grope to grab onto a neighbor, and the cannibal's howls come closer. Alice grabs Kady by the shoulder and Eliot by the wrist just as he blinks— 

It's quiet, but this quiet has life in it--the chirp of night insects, the sweet orchard smell of ripe fruit, the whisper of autumn leaves falling to the ground. They stand on a square filled with tiles, a beautiful abstract pattern swirling around an empty space where a central tile should lie. A cottage stands off to one side, empty and abandoned, but Eliot feels the strangest, curious sensation--as if he'd just stepped onto his own front yard. As if he belonged here.

"I know this place," Eliot says.

Everything he sees is brand-new to him, but somehow not a surprise--the faded blue paint on the cottage and the russet shutters still on their hinges, the thatched roof (he knows there's no hearth inside before he even takes a step to investigate,) the poles where a clothesline used to stretch—he knows what he's about to see even before he sees it. And he expects Quentin to step out of the cottage carrying a soup pot full of the vegetables they grew themselves, for a young man (Teddy, his name was Teddy, and Eliot's so proud of him he's ready to burst) to grow tall and leave them to their mosaic, of picking up the tiles and laying them again—of a night where Quentin stole his heart away with a single, courageous kiss— 

"Eliot?"

He doesn't know who said it.

"I've been here before," Eliot says, and the ground rushes up to meet him.


	16. forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight

46: in accordance with the prophecy

 

Eliot opens his eyes to Alice bent over him, his head cradled in her lap. Two fingers press lightly on his throat, checking for a pulse, and she sighs in relief.

"You fainted," she says. "You need electrolytes, but this is the best we can do."

She gives him a water bottle and a Clif bar, and Eliot lets her smooth his hair out of his face as he sips and eats. "Don't get up yet. You're going to be fine."

"I'm only a little dizzy," Eliot says, and he can't help noticing that at this angle, Alice's boobs are truly spectacular. "Soothe my brow some more."

"Does your head hurt?" Margo asks. "You went down like someone cut your puppet strings. Wonderland here was on you in a heartbeat."

"Don't call me that," Alice snaps. "Only Eliot calls me that."

"Okay," Margo says. "Special pet name, all this nurturing—what went down?"

Alice shrugs. "He held me when I was scared." 

Eliot knows she means when the cannibals were tearing apart one of their own. Anyone would have done that. Besides, Alice isn't his enemy. Quentin wants them to get along. He can be nice, for Quentin's sake.

He looks up. "Thank you."

"Quentin loves you," Alice says. "I'm doing this for him."

"All the same," Eliot says. And Quentin doesn't love him. Not yet. But he likes Alice's hands feathering over his forehead and around his ears, soothing him even though he didn't really need to be soothed.

"What happened?" Margo asks. "You said, _'I've been here before'_ and then you passed out. When were you here?"

"I don't know," Eliot says. "But I know this place. Q and I were here. We were here for a long time."

"How long?"

"We got old," Eliot says, and swipes at his eyes with one hand. "Not middle aged only kinda old. White hair and rheumatism old. We had a family. Quentin had a wife. We had a son. Quentin had this—stupid bushy beard…"

"Was it a dream?" Alice asked.

"No. The dream's in the Upper West side with a movie deal and students at Brakebills bring me—I teach at Brakebills in the dream. This was different. This was a memory."

Julia, who had knelt quietly beside him this whole time, crosses her arms in front of her. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. I'm going to try my spell."

"Be careful," Eliot says. "Don't do anything but find Quentin. We don't know what will happen, doing more."

"Right." Julia stands up and tuts a variant of a lost objects spell, crooking her fingers into a position meant to direct a spell at a person, and then she frowns. Why? It's brilliant. Her transitions are seamless—the kind of thing that seems obvious once you see it, but Eliot would never have thought of in a hundred years. So what went wrong?

"Try it again."

Julia takes a deep breath and breath casts with the tut, and Eliot sees it now—there's no wavering in her aura indicating the flow of magical energy. 

That's not right. Eliot lifts one hand in the no-brainer gesture of the simplest spell he can think of—summoning a light.

Nothing.

"What the fuck," Eliot says. "Where’s the magic? Can anyone cast anything?"

Margo curls her fingers around a tender green weed next to Eliot's head. No frost forms on it. Nothing happens at all.

"What the fuck," Eliot says. "We can't do magic?"

"That's not right," Julia says, her voice shaking. "Fillory is the land of magic. It's immanent. Everywhere. How can there be no magic? The source is in Fillory. This makes no sense."

Alice tries a light spell, and for a phosphoromancer, it should be easy as breathing. But no light shines on them, save the faint glow of strange stars.

"What's going on here?" Kady asks. 

"Magic's gone. It's just—"

"Stolen. Hoarded. Possessed by the Beast," a new voice says.

A small party of people bearing torches move into the clearing, led by a woman armed with a pair of knives, the faint lines of adulthood on her face. "You six. Are you all Children of Earth?"

"Yes," Julia says even as Eliot tries to decide whether acknowledging the fact is good or bad. "We're Children of Earth. We are Magicians. What happened to the magic of this land?"

"The waters of the wellspring run foul with shadows," the woman says. "The same shadows fall over the land, save the last patch of world that still knows the light. You have chosen the most dramatic time to come to our rescue, Children of Earth, but the words of the stories say that the High King will come in the hour of greatest need."

The woman sheathes her knives and her party bend heads and knees. "Hail, Children of Earth. We recognize your claim to the high thrones of Fillory."

"Hail," the people behind their leader say.

"Fuck me running," Eliot says. "We're the cavalry."

"As we are the first to welcome you, we ask for the consideration of standing highest in your council when you re-take the high throne from the Beast whose shadow darkens the land."

Great. Fucking great. They're the ones who were foretold from the prophecy or some crap like that. Just what they need, when all the power the six of them have is one lever action rifle and a single box of ammo.

"Thank you," Eliot says, since the rest of them aren't fucking talking. "One thing, though. How are we prophesied to regain the high throne, exactly?"

"Fools," a new voice says. 

Everyone swivels to regard a woman with starlit black eyes and skin as pale as moonlight, dressed in gossamer layers of thin, diaphanous fabric. Magic pours off her, sparkling in the nebula-dust swirls of her aura. Her party doubles the number of people in the clearing, and the first woman glares at her like an enemy.

"Beware her, Children of Earth," the first woman says as she arms herself again. "She is tricksome, like all fairy folk. And as their queen, she is the most deceptive of all."

"It is true that I am the high queen of the free fairies of Fillory," the pale woman says. "I come to learn if the High King who was foretold walks among us. Do you claim to be he, Child of Earth?"

"Me? No!" Eliot says, and whoofs in surprise as Alice thumps him in the ribs.

"Eliot," she says, from between clenched teeth. "When a fairy queen asks if you're the High King of Fillory, you say yes."

"But I'm not," Eliot says. "It can't possibly be me. It's Quentin. It has to be."

"It makes sense," Julia says. "Why else would the Beast want him so bad? It has to be Quentin. But that just means we have to find him so he can negotiate with—"

"I am Fen, Lead voice of Fillorians United," the woman says.

"I am the queen of the fairies."

"Great. Um. What do we call you, your majesty?"

"I never give my name simply for the asking, and no one knows it. But you may call me Queen Sorrowmoss, and I will answer to it. But you deny that you are the high king. Who among your number is he? The handsome dark one, then?"

"Ah, no," Penny says. "I'm not a High King or whatever. You want Quentin Coldwater."

Queen Sorrowmoss lifts her chin, the picture of command. "Where is he? I wish to make my negotiations at once."

"Fairies lie with the plain truth," Fen says. "Never trust a fairy, and you may escape a run-in with your skin and soul intact."

"Lies and perfidy," Queen Sorrowmoss declares. "We shall find the High King first, and make treaty with him."

Fen juts out her chin. " _We_ shall find the high king first, and protect him from your falsehoods."

"I will not be insulted by a common dirtling," Sorrowmoss declares. "And when we find the High King, his favor will elevate us above your posturing."

"We will find him! We already search—"

A roar fills the clearing, loud and fierce. "Silence!" 

Eliot startles, and raises the rifle as a huge, hump-shouldered brown bear enters the clearing, accompanied by twelve-point bucks with corvids perching among the tines of their antlers, foxes and badgers and wolves filling the clearing.

"Cease your noise, two-footed squabblers," the bear says. "I am Humbledrum, speaker for the talking Kin. We have the Child of Earth you seek."

Eliot stands up taller. "We need to speak to him. Show us where he is—"

"No, Child of Earth," the great, deep voiced bear says. "It is we, the talking kin of Fillory who hold advantage. What will you give us, in return for your king?"

 

47: war, blood, and rhetoric

 

After an hour of Fen, Queen Sorrowmoss, and Humbledrum squabbling in circles around a cheerful, crackling campfire, Eliot holds up his hands. "Okay. Stop me if I miss something, but otherwise, please just listen."

The Fairies, the Fillorians, and the talking kin all settle, quiet and attentive. Eliot swallows and plunges straight in. "Fillory is shrouded in darkness and evil. Most of the land is completely dominated by the Beast. One corner of Fillory remains stalwart and free--but that corner is crumbling, because you three—" here he points at Fen, Sorrowmoss, and Humbledrum—"can't figure out how to get your shit together and cooperate, even though your land's being taken, and people are getting possessed?"

"Not any of _my_ people," Queen Sorrowmoss says. "When the Beast encounters a free fairy, it steals them away."

"He butchers my people, and takes their skins as trophies," Humbledrum says.

"He possesses mine, and no one suspects a thing as they infect others with their darkness, and they rise up to attack."

"So all of you are being picked off by the Beast, and you still fight among yourselves?" Margo says. "What's your reason?"

"Neither the talking kin nor the fairies will give way to the fighters of Fillory United. They're stubborn and foolish," Fen says.

"Fillorians are _humans_ , and humans are responsible for fairy genocide across the worlds."

Alice cocks her head. "But you'll follow the High King, a Child of Earth?"

"The High King is noble, just, and forthright," Queen Sorrowmoss says. "He wields mercy, severity, and wisdom in even measure. He can be trusted to protect the people in his charge. And when we gain the especial favor of the High King—"

"The Kin who kept the High King safe in his vulnerability should be accorded the honor of highest in the council," Humbledrum breaks in. "Our protection will not go unrecognized, however the grasping, scheming fairies imagine that the High King will trust the bargains of proven deceivers."

"It is the heart and strength of the Fillorians that the High King will need the most," Fen argues. "We deserve the highest place in the council, for we have suffered the most."

Queen Sorrowmoss scoffs. "Neither of these beggars can offer what I can."

Eliot raises one eyebrow. "What can you offer?"

"Magic courses through our veins," Queen Sorrowmoss says. "We can share our power with the High King and his retainers, so they may lead us to victory against the Beast."

"Magic alone does not make a victory," Humbledrum objects. "An army is only as good as its knowledge of what lies ahead. We of the nation of talking kin can carry messages on swift wings and through mouseholes. There is nowhere we cannot infiltrate."

"An army requires people," Fen says. "I command the army of Fillorians United. We are seven thousand strong ready to march for the High King, to go where he wills us, to lay siege on Castle Whitespire and win it for the good of all—"

Seven thousand didn't sound like a lot. But why couldn't they see what was perfectly obvious? "And you wish the High King to choose one of you to help him fight against the Beast."

"Yes," they chorus.

"Well. I know the High King. I know his mind, and I know what he would say to such an offer," Eliot says, and all three leaders lean forward to hear which of them would be chosen. He waits, counting to three, and forms his lips around the single answer:

"No."

All three rear back, wide-eyed with shock, and Eliot takes the advantage. "Do you seriously mean to imply that if the High King chooses one of you over the others, that you would retreat from this battle and withdraw your support? Do you fight only for your own power and influence under the new regime? Do you care nothing for Fillory, and are here only for what you can get?"

Now they looked shocked, their denials tumbling over each other. "No. Of course not. That isn't what I meant—"

"The fact is that Fillory needs all of you if we're to have a chance. Fillory needs every fighter, every talking kin, every fairy to give everything to stand against the Beast. You--all of you--are Fillory's last hope of survival. All of you are the heroes Fillory cries out for in these last gasping breaths. Fillory needs you. Your High King needs you. Will you turn your back on Fillory?"

"No!" They cry.

"Will you stand with your High King and the Children of Earth to the last?"

"Yes!"

Take my hands," Eliot says, and together they join in a circle. "The only way we can do this is to stand together - Fairy, Talking Kin, United Fillorian, and the Children of Earth. Spears shall be shaken, shields shall be splintered! A day may come when the courage of Fillory fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day! This day, we fight! Together we will shed blood for the sake of the world. Are you with me?"

"Yes!"

"Are you with Fillory?" 

"Yes!"

"Are you with each other?"

"Yes!"

"Stand proud, warriors. Bring me to the High King with news of our union. We can't waste another minute."

As one, the fairies, the Fillorians, and the talking kin turn and troop away from the clearing. Eliot's shaking with adrenaline, his hands trembling and his scalp tingling with what he just did--wait.

What did he just do?

"Whoa," Kady says. "Was that The Lord of the Rings?"

Eliot sighs. "I know."

"Yeah," Julia agrees. "It was totally the Lord of the Rings."

The excitement's anxiety now, turning in sick, rolling circles in his stomach. "Guys? Did I just declare war on the dark wizard overlord of a magical world?"

"You sure did, bro," Penny says. 

"Well. Shit," Eliot says.

"But you're going to do it, right?" Alice asks. "You can't say every beautiful thing you just said, and then bail out on them."

"I'll help," Julia says. "I won't leave Fillory to fall."

"I'll help," Margo says. "I'm not leaving you to cock this up on your own."

Penny and Kady nod. "They need us," Penny says. "We can't just leave them to die."

But they could die--Eliot, Margo, Julia, all of them. They could die here. This wasn't a pretend game. This was a war.

"We stay," Eliot says. "For Fillory."

He slings his rifle over his shoulder and follows the troop of fighters out of the clearing.

 

48: For my true love, a kiss

 

Humbledrum leads the way through the forest, and Eliot's terrified he's going to step on one of the tiniest of the talking kin to join the procession through the darkness. His boots are chafing his little toes, and he knows from the damp sensation that the blister had broken some miles back, and he should take a break and tend to them.

But Quentin was in this forest. Quentin had found safety with allies, and Eliot had to go to him and explain everything--about how Quentin was the High King of Fillory, and how Eliot had caught fire and promised they'd fight a war against the Beast who had nearly killed Quentin the first time they clashed, and how bleak their odds of survival were.

Julia had given Fen the map from the book, and Fen marked the border that divided the land. The portion the resistance held was abysmal: only the northwest corner of Fillory, a wilderness marked only by the Flying Forest, the Clock Barrens, and the Darkling Wood stood strong. "All else has fallen to the Beast," Fen says. "We are the last."

But they're on their way to Quentin. That's all Eliot's thinking about--not the shadow falling across the map, not the insurmountable odds, not the lack of magic and shortage of bullets. Only Quentin, and why the talking kin didn't realize that Quentin was the High King already. Surely they talked to him. Surely they asked him the same questions. Maybe Quentin was too modest to claim the name.

"When we find Quentin, we'll figure out exactly what to do," Eliot mutters, half to himself, and keeps walking even through the blood and pain.

But walking through a forest is no sidewalk stroll. The floor is uneven, covered in leaf litter and exposed tree roots, and his pack is heavy and it must be damn near five in the morning by now. He's been tired for hours, his muscles sore and complaining, but still he walks. He’ll rest when he's by Quentin's side. 

He sees the light peeking from between the trees a good ten minutes before he carries his sore and protesting body into a perfectly circular meadow in the midst of the forest. The lights he saw are the courting sparks of fireflies, swarming thickly enough to light the figure laying on a bier in the center of the grove.

Quentin lies still and quiet, a faint shimmering light playing over his body--moving with his breath, Eliot realizes, and it punches a relieved sob out of his chest. He stumbles to Q's side, his hand hovering over the watery, glittering wall of light. 

"Nothing breaks the shield," Humbledrum says. "We could carry him, but no spell or psychic probe penetrates it."

"No dice, man," Penny says. "Quentin's thoughts are nerd loud, and not a peep."

Eliot knows what this is. It's the shield he wove over Quentin: the innermost, carefully tessellated layer. Somehow, it still surrounded him, protected him, and kept him safe. There was a chance the Beast didn't even know Quentin was here. A chance that Eliot hadn't failed, after all.

The bier's blanketed in flowers. Eliot hates how it makes him think of a funeral, the magical shield around Quentin's body a casket. It's too much like death. He wants Quentin to sigh, to smack his lips and mutter, just as he would if he were sleeping.

He reaches toward the shield, but hesitates. It's keeping Quentin safe, and Eliot didn't have the magic he needed to build him a new one. He's safer here, protected by the shield. Maybe he should leave Q inside it.

He looks up at the people surrounding the bier - Margo and his baby ducks, Fen and her soldiers, talking animals keeping solemn watch, the silent, vigilant fairies. They waited for their High King. He had to break the spell. He had to wake Quentin to a world where Eliot might not be able to keep him safe.

Slowly, so slowly, Eliot lowers his hand and the shield's surface ripples, as if he touched the surface of a pond. His fingers sink into the shield and press gently against Quentin's chest, his heartbeat thumping just below Eliot's fingers.

Alive, and the shield flows over his hand like water.

He shakes Quentin gently. "Wake up."

Nothing.

Eliot snaps his fingers next to Quentin's ear. Not even a twitch.

Quietly, so quietly, Quentin sighs, and the whole grove catches its breath. Quentin's asleep. An enchanted sleep, holding him under the surface of consciousness by some kind of magic.

"Was he like this when you found him?"

"And the physicians did what they could, not being able to touch him. An enchantment keeps him asleep," Humbledrum says. "We dug deep for a prophecy, but all we have are stories where sleeper could only be awakened by true love's kiss."

Humbledrum's words wrench through him. "Oh. is that all?"

"It's the most reliable way to treat such things. A kiss, from the one who loves him and is loved in return." Humbledrum's massive head turns to regard Julia, Alice, and Margo. "Forgive me. I don't know which of you is the High King's consort, but only you can save him from—"

"I am," Eliot says. "The High King and I consort." 

"I thought you were his advisor," Humbledrum says.

"I am," Eliot answers. "But I'm also the one who loves him. Only—" his breath shudders out; an awful ache throbs in his stomach. "I don't know if he—"

He can't say it, but it's Alice who steps forward, Alice who lays a hand on his shoulder and squeezes.

"Kiss him," Alice says. "You're the only one who can do this."

That easy. Kiss him, and find out the truth. Kiss him, and watch Quentin sleep on, forever. He'd made it this far with knowing that even if his feelings for Q weren't returned, Q would keep his open heart safe. Eliot could love him, and have that love honored, but this…

This had to be faced.

Eliot's hand trembles, and he plants the other on the bier to steady himself as he lowers his head and touches Quentin's mouth with his own.

Quentin's lips are soft, pliant, warm, and utterly still, but Eliot kisses him gently, breathing against his cheek before he lifts his head and strokes Quentin's hair from his brow.

"Q, my love," Eliot says. "We need you. Wake up."

Quentin sighs. Smacks his lips. And slowly opens his eyes, focusing on Eliot's face.

"Hi," Quentin says. "You're here."

 

END OF ACT TWO


	17. Act Three: forty-nine, fifty

49\. The High King of Fillory - cw recalling self harm (cutting,) descriptions of same

 

Quentin rises to the surface of warm black peace and becomes a body in an instant. His lips tingle with the echoing ghost of a kiss. A voice, Eliot's voice, murmurs at him to wake up.

How long was he sleeping? He opens his eyes, and Eliot's the first face he sees, gazing down at him in relief and amazement, and Quentin smiles. Eliot kissed him. He can still feel it on his mouth, the sensation of warmth and life suffusing his skin. "Hi. You're here."

"You woke up," Eliot says. "I kissed you, and you woke up—It worked. "

The fireflies overhead dance in exultation, and figures bearing torches and swords stand just at the corner of his vision, but none of that matters. Eliot's here. Eliot came for him, finding a way to walk across worlds to come to him here, in Fillory. 

No one has to tell him that he's in Fillory. He can feel it on his skin, smell it in the air—clean and foresty, and a tiny bit poppy-sweet. But there's darkness in it too, like a poisonous, corrosive black slime hovering just on the edges of scent. He's in terrible danger, he knows, but Eliot's here now. 

Quentin is safe.

"I love you," he says. "I love you back. Eliot, I—"

Eliot guides him close, his hand on the back of Quentin's neck, and they kiss. 

The world turns a little slower just to give them a few more moments. Quentin slips his fingers into Eliot's hair and opens his mouth, needing more, needing it like air. Eliot drags him closer and gives Quentin everything, his fear and relief and a promise that he will always, always come for Quentin, no matter how far or dangerous coming to him would be.

When they stop, when they must stop, Quentin sees the sunrise in Eliot's eyes, the quiet, profound joy on his face, the beautiful, wondering smile. "You love me."

"I love you."

Eliot's smile widens, and they're both grinning like fools now. They can't resist another kiss, and a great cheer rises up, the sound of many people clapping and hooting coupled by the roar and howl and call of many animals. 

Quentin turns his head, finally, and there's Julia, punching the air, and Penny, whistling loud with his fingers in his mouth, and Alice, clapping her hands and smiling even though there's a rip in it. But there are many, many people in this clearing, the sky above them going pale as the dawn comes.

"Is this the King?" A bear asks. "Is this the High King of Fillory?"

Quentin looks at Eliot. "What?"

Eliot shrugs, his smile still a bit giddy. "There's a prophecy."

"Oh shit. Really?" Quentin asks. "But we haven't been tested. Or crowned, or anything. They can't know if I'm the High King."

"It has to be you," Eliot says. "It makes sense. You know Fillory the most—"

"Accumulating the most lore about a place doesn't mean you have the right to rule it," Quentin says.

"And you love Fillory the most," Eliot says. "You loved it even when it wasn't cool. Fillory was your refuge."

"Fillory saved my life," Quentin says. "Those books kept me afloat over and over. But that still doesn't mean that I have the right to rule it."

Eliot grasps him by the shoulders. "Quentin. Listen to me. You deserve this. And Fillory needs you. They need their High King. They've come together over their differences and their rivalries to unite under your banner."

"How did that happen?" Quentin asks. "I mean, how'd they unite?"

Eliot's smile turns a bit nervous. "I…did a little convincing."

Fuck, he's adorable. "You did."

"And I might have, uh, declared war on the Beast."

He looks at all the people gathered around, watching him in this moment. Every one of them have fear in their faces, but there's hope there too. Hope that the High King will lead them to triumph. Hope that he will lead them to triumph.

It's fucking terrifying. "A war."

"And we're going to, uh. Re-conquer Fillory, with the help of the talking kin, our reconnaissance and communications team, the free fairies, our sorcerous auxiliary, and the Fillorian army, a trained force of seven thousand soldiers."

Quentin can't help smiling. "You arranged all that? Maybe you're the High King of Fillory."

Eliot blinks as if he'd never considered it. "Me? I can't. I can't be."

"You don't know which of you is the High King," a pale woman with unsettling black eyes says. "This Child of Earth said you, Quentin Coldwater, were the High King. Do you deny it?"

"I don't know," Quentin says. "I know the four thrones of Fillory are held by Children of Earth. What happened to the last rulers?"

The assembled strangers exchange glances. "The last Children of Earth to sit on the thrones have been dead since before I was born," the Fillorian woman said. 

"Then who rules Fillory?" Quentin asks, and he knows, he knows the second it comes out of his mouth.

A pall settles over the assembly as the huge bear answers. "The Beast has ruled Fillory for all of our lifetimes."

"I can answer," the black-eyed woman says. "The Beast came to Fillory seventy-five Earth years ago. The darkness began then. The Children of Earth were slowly corrupted and when they died or fled, the Beast took the throne in the open. When he called to the people to swear to him, they were possessed by one of his moths and became an extension of his own consciousness. They appear normal, but they're completely subverted."

Julia and Penny both raise protective hands to their throats. Julia clears her throat. "He's almost conquered Fillory. Earth is next."

"But why didn't the Beast wait until Fillory was totally lost to attack Earth?"

The Fillorian woman answers. "Isn't it obvious? To keep the High King from returning."

That's why it went after Quentin. It was trying to stop him from coming to Fillory. Trying to make sure this band of holdouts didn't snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

The Beast is afraid of the High King. The Beast is afraid of _him._ And that's got to mean that he has what it takes to save these people, even if he's not really a fighter. Even if he's scared to death. 

The black-eyed woman goes on. "We must know which of you is the High King. Your lover said it was you. You say it's him. The rainbow bridge to the Seat of the High Crowns is utterly corrupted, but we have a way to determine which of you is the High King."

She nods, and the Fillorian woman scowls, but she produces a knife from a sheath - a long, slender blade that gleams along its wickedly honed edge. Quentin looks at the blade and imagines it biting into his skin, parting the dermis whisper quick, so sharp the pain takes a moment to realize he's been hurt.

He squeezes one hand around his left wrist and feels sick. He stopped doing that. He promised Julia. He stopped. And he doesn't need that now, he doesn't need the pain of his body to overshadow the agony of being alive in a pointless, empty world where everything _hurts_ and it's the only way to show the world what's going on inside him.

This revulsion he feels is right. He should shy away. The blade turns his stomach, but he maybe wouldn't have flinched so hard a year ago as he is right now.

He pulls the sleeve back on his left arm, and the black eyed woman sees the old thin scars that track his arm, the marks that have faded, but not vanished.

"You're a blood mage," she says.

"No," Quentin says. "I don't think I ever did magic when I did any of this."

He hopes that's true, because it's too awful to think about if it's not. He takes up the knife and lays the point on his arm. It's not the same as cutting. The magic needs him to bleed for Fillory.

Blade meets skin, and skin...remains whole. It's not even scratched. He presses harder, making the skin go white where it's pressed, but there's no cut. There's no pain. There's no blood.

Quentin stares at his arm in disbelief. "It's not me."

Eliot looks at him with huge, tender eyes. "Maybe it's the other side of the blade."

But it's not. Quentin isn't the High King of Fillory. This world that he loves isn't his, and if he's not the High King, then who is he?

"What's the point, then? If I'm not the High King, then why am I here?"

As soon as he utters the words, he feels…something. Not a sense of something rushing toward him, but rather as if the grove, the forest, the sprawl of land under his feet pauses in whatever occupies it and listens, ears pricked. The world under his feet waits to hear his wishes, and Quentin can feel the roots of the grasses, the flowers, the trees, all poised and attentive.

Grass stretches up taller. Buds raise their heads and open, blooming when they should be autumn quiet. Songbirds warble all around them, and all the animals bow low in respect. But the the blade doesn't cut him.

Something happened. But Quentin doesn't understand what.

"That was amazing," Eliot says.

"It didn't work. Why didn't it work?"

"It should have."

"But it didn't. Here. Try it." Quentin offers him the blade, but Eliot ignores it, reaching instead for a steel flask and a cloth to wipe the blade itself. 

"Vodka," Eliot says. "It's not the best disinfectant, but it'll do." 

He shoves the sleeve of his nylon windbreaker up to the elbow, and Quentin sees the straight lines of silvery scars marking the inside of Eliot's right arm.

Eliot glances at them, then shrugs at Quentin. "I never did any magic with these, either."

He hisses a split second after he makes the cut. Red fills in the line, dripping on the earth. He bleeds, and Eliot gapes at the wound, thunderstruck.

"Well," he says. "Shit."

Quentin stares at the cut on Eliot's arm. He's not the High King. Eliot, who never poured his life into the books, who has the burdensome gift of a different world, _not Fillory_ , nestled in his manuscript--Eliot is High King of Fillory. Not him.

All around him, the earth and the stones and the trees sigh with him, drooping and heavy under the weight of his disappointment. It shames him--isn't this awareness, this connection with the land enough? It's magical. He ought to respect it.

And so he looks up at Eliot, who's gazing at him with a soft, sympathetic expression, and smiles.

"I really thought it was you," Eliot says. "It made so much sense."

But it was Eliot who brought all his friends to Fillory to save him. Eliot who settled a three way feud in a single day with nothing more than words. Fillory needs a leader, and where Eliot leads, people follow. Fillory needs Eliot.

"But it's you," Quentin says. "You're the High King of Fillory. You're the one who will save the world."

"All hail the High King of Fillory!" the Fillorian woman cries. Cheers and roars rise all around them, growing louder as the sun rises and the sky, ribboned with gold and salmon pink, brightens to the cloudless blue of a new day.

 

50\. A cold shadow

 

Quentin knows their names now - Fen, Queen Sorrowmoss, and Humbledrum, and they squabble over who should have the first turn at marching by Eliot's side, consulting with him. Eliot sighs and limps a little as he hikes through the forest, Quentin's hand caught firmly in his. 

"I'm looking for cooperation more than I'm looking for competition," Eliot says. "So I'm going to leave you to figure out between yourselves who will speak first. If you can't settle it between the three of you, then I don't want to hear it."

"But how will we—"

"Any way you like, except violence, threats, blackmail, or general underhandedness. This is a team building exercise. Now shoo." Eliot dismisses them with a wave of his hand. "Only one of you come back and the rest of you wait your turn."

The three faction leaders step off the path and bicker among themselves. A flame-breasted robin takes flight from a branch, flitting ahead to the next, and Eliot stares the little creature down.

"No spying. Get."

The bird shrugs its wings and waits for them to pass. 

Quentin looks over his shoulder at the trio. "How long do you think it will take them to decide?"

"I'm sure I have plenty of time for a nap, once we get to the site Fen's scouts chose for a camp. They've been fighting so long, I don't think they'll let go easily."

The site the scouts chose isn't far, and it's a good site, next to a fast-moving creek with water so clean Quentin can see the bottom. It's cold and fresh and his senses tell him the water's safe to drink, but Eliot wants it filtered anyway. Fen's people want to set up a pavilion--Fen's pavilion--and make Eliot wait until they can quarter him properly, but he calls on the young soldier carrying his pack and digs out a net-woven string hammock.. They won't let him secure it himself, and once it's set up, Eliot's visibly trying not to shout at people who are trying to help.

"The High King needs rest," Quentin says. "The best thing you can do is make sure no one disturbs him until he's had some sleep."

"Bless you," Eliot murmurs, but their hammock is surrounded by a ring of people.

"Step away more," Quentin says. "A little privacy, please...more...more...that's good, thank you."

"Quick. Lie down before anyone thinks of anything helpful." 

A moment later they're curled into each other's arms in a gently swaying hammock. Eliot sighs and tucks Quentin's head under his chin. "After all that sleeping, I doubt you're tired."

"Doesn't matter," Quentin says. "Close your eyes. Sleep."

"But there's so much to talk about."

"It'll keep."

"Okay. Remind me to tell you about the cottage. We were there. You and me, and there was a mosaic and we had to put the tiles in the correct order for a quest…"

"Is this a dream?"

"No. I remember. We were really there. Fifty years. We had a son."

"I don't remember."

"You will when you see it. We'll...go there. Hmm."

"You're going to talk until you fall asleep, aren't you?"

Eliot kisses the top of Quentin's head. "Tired."

He's quiet. His breaths slow down and his body relaxes into the hammock and he doesn't let Quentin go. Quentin closes his eyes and the land around him is quiet--plants and trees stretch their leaves toward sunlight, and he feels the warmth on his body as if he were out there, soaking up life. It's so peaceful, so fearless. He can feel people and animals moving around, busy at tasks and moving around the faction leaders, who are still bickering over who gets to talk to Eliot first. 

The guards around them shift their weight, and one turns around to walk toward the hammock, light-footed and careful where he steps. The earth is cold where the guard's shadow falls, as if it's a little more substantial than ordinary--denser, and—

Quentin's eyes flick open.

Something is not right about that shadow. It's darker than it should be. It's heavier. Colder. And he's coming closer.

Quentin rolls out of the hammock with a shout. "Help!"

The guard picks up his feet and runs. He's holding a knife up over his head, rushing for Eliot, who's scrabbling for his rifle, but it's too late, he'll never make it—

"Help!" Quentin yells, and the guards are turned around now, headed toward the assassin and Eliot, who bashes the butt of his rifle right into the man's knee. He has to do something to stop him. Anything. 

He doesn't know battle-magic. He can't cast anything. But Fillory hears him, and Fillory answers.

A swarm of angry wasps attack the assassin, stinging his face, his neck, his hands. He screams, trying to bat the angry insects away, and Eliot rolls out of reach, the rifle in his hands as he comes up on one knee and takes aim. Tree roots rise out of the earth, entangling the man's ankles. And Quentin moves toward him, striking the man's chest with one hand.

A force rises through the soles of Quentin's feet, up his body and bursts out of his open palm to strike inside the man's body, surrounding an oily dark patch in his chest. The man screams, chokes...and coughs up a mouse-brown moth with blue eyespots on its hind wings. It flutters out of reach, but Eliot sights along the barrel of his rifle and shoots it out of the sky.

The moth falls to the ground, and the earth flinches at its touch--it's dense with corruption, and even as it struggles feebly, still living, it blackens the grass it touches. Queen Sorrowmoss bursts out of the crowd surrounding Quentin and Eliot and casts something at the moth. It levitates in midair, and then burns with blue-hot fire.

Its scream tears at Quentin's ears. It's a horrible sound--discordant with rage and terror, a fingernails down a chalkboard squeal, and when it goes quiet Quentin can still hear it screaming.

Fairies rush to seize the wasp-stung man, but Eliot moves forward. "He needs a doctor and a debriefing. This man didn't try to kill me. The Beast did. He was just along for the ride." 

He turns to Quentin. "How did you know?"

"I felt it," Quentin said. "His shadow was cold."

"What does that mean?" Eliot asks. "How?"

"I felt how his shadow landed on the ground. It was wrong."

"You felt it. And you cast the spell that wound him up in those roots? How? We can't use magic here--oh god, you casted. We need a healer—"

"That's not what happened," Quentin says. "I don't know how to explain. But it wasn't a spell."

"What was it?"

"I can feel Fillory," Quentin says. "It wants to do what I want."

"The land knows him," Queen Sorrowmoss says. 

"Is there a story about that?" Eliot asks.

Queen Sorrowmoss nods. "An old one."

"What is it?"

"They say that when the Beast came to Fillory, the land did his will too." The fairy gazes at Quentin. "You are not the High King, Quentin Coldwater. High Kings rule the people. You have dominion over the earth itself."

She turns to Fen, who holds a knife to Eliot's would-be attacker, her face white with anxiety. "I think, given the circumstances, I must speak to the High King first. Our squabbling left him and the other Children of Earth in danger, and we must not allow that to happen again."

Fen nods. "I'll interrogate Durstan. Send for me when the High King is ready."

She takes a contingent of Fillorians with her, leaving Quentin and Eliot in the company of fairies.

"What do you have that will protect us?" Eliot says, but he holds Quentin's hand like he's afraid Quentin will drift away. 

"You are magicians, but you have no magic. The Wellspring is lost to the Shadow. But we are magic, down to our bones, deep in the blood."

She twists her fingers and a sharp, silvery knife appears in her hand. Quentin almost sees how she did it. An attendant kneels, holding up a jeweled goblet to catch the trickling flow of her blood running down her fingers. "Drink."

She offers the goblet to Eliot. "Drink, High King. Power will be yours once more."

Eliot stares at the cup. Quentin tries not to shiver. "Eliot. This--this is definitely blood magic."

"I don't see how we have a choice," Eliot says. "How long does it last?"

"My blood is the most potent," The fairy queen says. "To the next noon. I will have my knights supply your companions, but this measure is yours."

"What's the price?" Eliot asks. "What's this going to cost?"

"We need you to have the power to protect yourself," Queen Sorrowmoss says. "That need outweighs all other considerations."

"I don't know—"

A choked off scream sounds from the left. Another Fillorian has Alice by the throat, dragging her kicking and fighting for air. His companions, frozen by the shock, stand still and useless.

"Alice!" 

Eliot snatches the cup from the fairy queen and drains it. He reaches out and twists his fingers and blood fountains from the Fillorian's neck. He falls, and a moth crawls out of his gaping mouth. 

He's dead. Eliot snuffed out his life without a moment's thought. Eliot tuts again, and the moth bursts into horrible screams as it burns alive.

"You killed him."

Eliot shrugs. "He was going to kill Alice." 

"But he wasn't himself!" Quentin says. "We could have saved him, but you—"

Eliot turns to him and his eyes are placid, as if he hadn't just torn open a man's jugular. "Alice is more important. I thought you would agree."

"But you didn't have to--what did you do to him?" Quentin turns on Queen Sorrowmoss and steps right into her space. "What did you do?"

"Some people consider the effect to be one of heightened clarity," the fairy queen says. "They see things more objectively without the sentimentality of emotions clouding their judgement."

"I feel fine, Quentin," Eliot says. "I made a decision based on facts and values."

"Facts and--Eliot, look at me. What do you see?"

Eliot looks at him, but there's nothing soft, nothing warm in his eyes. "I see you."

"But what do you feel?"

Eliot blinks. "You're the most important person in my life. And if Alice died, it would hurt you."

"But do you feel anything?"

Eliot considers this for a moment. "I'm tired. And hungry. We need to screen every Fillorian for possession. Any of them could be puppets of the Beast."

"And then we _exorcise_ them," Quentin says. "It's not their fault. That man had a family."

"Alice is your family," Eliot says. "You should check on her. But don't take long. I'm going to organize the screening of the Fillorians, and I need you to determine who's still possessed."

He bends and kisses Quentin's forehead, and it feels like he's doing it by rote. "It's fine, Q. I'm fine. See to Alice. Hurry back."

Eliot walks away, leaving Quentin staring after him.


	18. fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three

51\. An abundance of patience

 

Quentin is distressed, and Eliot will take care of that, but Eliot has to use this time in the wisest way possible, while his judgement is clear and his reason is ascendant. Quickly, before the rush of fairy blood coursing through his body wears off and fatigue sets in. He must sleep--lack of proper rest impairs the mind--but other things take priority.

He walks through the camp with his rifle hanging from his shoulder. He doesn't need it at the moment--he has magic, after all, but he knows that the spell he used to save Alice drained his reserve noticeably. He can't waste it.

Julia breaks away from where Quentin and Alice huddle together, catching up to him as he strolls down a deer path leading to Fen's makeshift interrogation area. Kady comes up on the other side, and he nods to them both. 

"The magic problem has a temporary solution," he says. "Queen Sorrowmoss's knights are standing by. Apparently their blood won't be as potent, but I'm curious to know how it compares."

"I can find out," Kady says. "If we're dealing with mothlings in camp, we're going to need battle magic."

"Go, then. Tell Sorrowmoss that I sent you."

Kady turns back, heading for the main camp. Eliot keeps walking, but Julia grabs his arm.

"Wait," Julia says. "Eliot. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"There's nothing wrong," Eliot says. 

"There's something wrong," Julia says. "You’re scary right now."

"The ingestion has a secondary effect."

She laughs, but there's something ragged in it. "Secondary effect. That's what you're calling it."

"It's useful," Eliot says. "My mind is the clearest it's been in my life. I can see everything objectively. I don't have doubt clouding my decisions."

"You killed that man. When you didn't have to kill him."

There's no time to waste. Eliot starts walking again, stepping over a moss-covered log. "He was going to kill Alice. That would have hurt Quentin."

Julia has to hurry next to Eliot's long-legged steps. "There's a way to exorcise the moths without killing the host. Quentin did it."

"Quentin doesn't know how he did it. And he wouldn't have made it to Alice in time. It really was the best decision," Eliot explained, patiently. He has patience for Julia. He understands the way her emotions cloud the purity of her thought. She will understand once she has a dose. "We're about to fight a war. We need all the clarity we can get. I haven't said so to Fen, but seven thousand men aren't enough to conquer the darkened part of Fillory. We're going to have to take that force straight to the Beast."

"Do you have any idea what you sound like right now?" Julia asks. "It's like the fairy blood wiped out your soul."

Eliot goes over what he just said. There's nothing wrong with it. His reasoning is sound. "Is what I'm saying incorrect?"

"That's not the point," Julia says. "You're talking about taking seven thousand people and marching them straight to their deaths, with no remorse."

"They're an army, Julia," Eliot says patiently. "That's what they're for."

Pain and revulsion ripples across Julia's face. "Listen to me. Give me a day with Quentin and the possessed Fillorians we find in camp. I'll figure out how Quentin purged that moth, and then I'll teach the rest of us. The fairies too. Because if we can exorcise them, we can add the newly freed Fillorians to our forces. Greater numbers, more safety within those numbers, better odds for siege warfare—"

"That will be slow," Eliot says. "Every one of those moths is a piece of the Beast's mind. It knows everything the people who were possessed know. The Beast knows we're here. The Beast knows the High King has returned, even though he tried to—"

He stops. The Beast never tired to kill him before. Well. He tried, using Penny. But Penny only attacked him as the obstacle standing in the way of getting to Quentin. Why Quentin? He's not the High King. 

Julia swats at an insect flying near her face. "What is it?"

"We must protect Quentin at all costs," Eliot says. "I don't know exactly how, but Quentin is a grave threat to the Beast. He must be guarded at all times. And if it means killing an otherwise innocent Fillorian to save Quentin, I won't hesitate--and I need you to do the same."

This is serious. They must not lose Quentin. He must be pivotal in stopping the Beast--it's the only explanation for the Beast's single-minded focus on him. His people will hurt if they lose Quentin--Eliot may be their leader, but Quentin is the center. Julia, Alice, Penny, and Kady would all fall to grieving. It would shatter them to the core when Eliot needs them to be strong, to fight the Beast and save Fillory. And Eliot can't lose Quentin. Quentin is important. Eliot needs Quentin to be happy and safe.

Quentin's upset right now. Eliot will take care of it--as soon as he's made the camp safe. "I need you to do whatever it takes to protect him, Julia. Quentin is the key."

"Eliot. Listen to me. I won't drink fairy blood for magic."

She doesn't understand. Fear clouds her judgement. She'll understand, once she's had the blood, how much more important Fillory and the war and Quentin is than this fear that makes her useless. "Without magic, you need to find a way to make yourself useful. The Beast will know the second we purge the last mind-moth. He'll make a counter-move. I don't have time to—"

"Eliot. I know you feel fine. But you're _not_ fine. You don't feel anything. A good leader needs love as well as logic."

Eliot has plenty of patience for Julia. She doesn't really know what it's like to have this kind of clarity. "It will pass. I can feel the power fading from me. It's a trickle, I still have time, but it will pass. I need to use this time to make the clearest decisions I can make before emotional responses cloud everything again—"

"You need a conscience."

"So be my conscience," Eliot says. "Be merciful where I am just. Come with me to the interrogation camp."

"I won't let you lose yourself," Julia says. "Quentin needs you."

"Everything I do is for him. Everything."

"Think about him, Eliot. What do you feel? Just...think about him."

He doesn't have time. But Quentin springs up in his mind, vivid as the sunlight dappling in his hair. Quentin, tasting the wine that cost too much money. Quentin, his head pillowed on one crooked arm as he props his beloved books about Fillory against his chest and reads. Quentin, covered in tubes and acupuncture needles and magically charged crystals as the healers fought to save his life.

"He must be kept safe," Eliot says. "He's important. Come and help me protect him."

Julia nods. Eliot offers his hand. Handholding is comforting. He doesn't need it, but Julia does, and she gazes at him with an expression he can't quite read before he continues to the clearing where the Fillorians are being questioned.

 

52\. To make an example

 

Eliot hears Durstan's weeping before he makes it to the clearing. The prisoner sits on a fallen log looking monstrous, but he falls to his knees when Eliot walks into view. 

Eliot waits for the sobbing and pleading to stop. He knows what he's saying, that he was helpless, that he couldn't stop himself from sneaking up to where the High King rested in an attempt to assassinate him.

Or Quentin. Quentin had been in the hammock too. Maybe he had been trying to kill Quentin. Eliot waits patiently as the man weeps facedown in the loam and makes too much noise for him to be able to talk to someone else. It would be a better use of his time.

Eventually the sobs die into silent weeping, and Eliot can speak. "Were you trying to kill me or Quentin?"

"High King," the man sobs. His face is covered in mouldering bits of dead leaves and snot. "Your Majesty. It wasn't me. I swear I would never—"

"Please answer." Eliot wipes the statement away with one hand. "I understand that you want me to know that you were possessed. Were you trying to kill me, or Quentin?"

"Quentin. The one who slept with you was more important. You had to die too, but Quentin had to die first."

"But he's the High King," Fen says. "Why murder the consort first?"

Eliot glances at Fen. "I can't tell you exactly why, but I want Quentin protected at all times. This is not the first time the Beast has attempted to kill him, and I doubt it will be the last."

He looks back to weeping, filthy Durstan. "Do you remember when the mind-moth took you?"

"It was over a year ago," Durstan says. "I was napping. I woke up with a tickle in my throat--and then everything was far away. I watched as my body moved around, spoke like me, acted like me, consented to join Fillorians United...I watched. I fought. But nothing worked. But then your consort touched me, and--I'm free of possession, Your Majesty. That touch burned all the shadow from me. It's gone. I am a true man once again, and I will repay your mercy with my life. I swear it."

With this, Durstan planted himself face-first on the forest floor again.

"Rise." Eliot has to make an example of this man. Everyone has to know what becomes of those who were possessed by the Beast. He turns to the man standing next to Fen and holds out his hand. "Your sword."

Durstan's dirty face crumples. "Please, Your Majesty. Please."

"Your Majesty," the man says. "Please. He's innocent."

"Your sword," Eliot repeats. "I won't ask you again."

White-faced, horrified, the man hands his sword over. Julia steps forward. "Eliot. You can't do this. You can't."

"I am High King," Eliot says. "I have weighed the facts and the value of this man, and he will look me in the eye as he faces my decision."

Julia clenches her fists. "I am your conscience," she says. "Listen to me. Do not do this."

Durstan pushes himself out of the dirt. His breath hitches as he tries to control his sobs, his eyes are swollen and red with tears, but he faces Eliot. He looks his High King in the eye.

"I do what I must." He pulls the blade from its scabbard and lays it on Durstan's right shoulder, then lifts it to touch his left. "Rise, Sir Durstan, and face your King."

Everyone in the grove stares at him, flabbergasted. Durstan gets to his feet, utterly disbelieving. Eliot lays his right hand on Durstan's shoulder. "You are the first of the Knights of the Eye. You have survived the touch of the Beast, and knowing it, I expect you to give your last drop of blood in standing against him."

Tears spill down Durstan's face. "I will. I swear I will."

"Go to the water and wash the last of the Beast's taint from you. Once clean, you are the first of my elite guard. Your task is to defend Quentin Coldwater with your life. Find him, and bring him to me."

"Yes, Your Majesty. Thank you. Thank you." Durstan backs up three paces, bows, and heads for the creek, ready to wash the last of the Beast away.

Julia shakes her head. "You couldn't have just led with that?"

"I had no intent to harm him," Eliot says. "So your protest, while well intentioned, was irrelevant."

Julia looks angry. Why? Eliot made the right decision. No one will fear coming to him if they suspect someone is possessed. "What's wrong?"

"You're so frustrating like this," Julia says. "I'd call you an asshole, but that's not accurate. You're not an asshole. But you're a fucking alien right now. Everyone here was terrified you were going to kill him, because you're--you don't have _any_ feelings. You're not yourself at all. The Eliot I know would have never done what you just did."

But it was the right thing to do. Eliot watches the tension in Julia's face. "He would not have spared the man's life?"

"No, he would have."

"He would not have seen a way to lift him from despair, which is useless, and give him a purpose?"

Julia screwed up her face. "And I still can't call you an asshole. That's not what I mean. You can't see yourself right now. You don't smile. You don't frown. Your body language is all strange. The Eliot I know would have done what you did—but he would have comforted that man. He would have taken care of our fears. He would have reassured us."

"I understand," Eliot says. He gives the sword back to Fen's attendant and marches over to Julia, taking her in his arms.

"What are you—"

"You're upset," Eliot says. "I am comforting you. It was not my intention to make you feel fear. I made a mistake, and I will avoid it next time. Thank you, my conscience."

Julia bursts into tears. Eliot sways with her. Swaying in someone's embrace is comforting. It prompts feelings of security. He lets her cry it all out, even though he really should be talking to Fen. When she collects herself and wipes her eyes, he turns back to Fen and nods. 

"We have to screen every one of the Fillorians, as quickly and quietly as possible. I need Quentin to see a physician. Do you have one?"

Fen nods. "The centaur refuge has been overrun. I have three centaurs with me, and one is a healer."

Eliot turns to one of Fen's retainers. "I need Quentin examined," Eliot says. "Please bring him to me."

 

52\. Hornpipe's diagnosis

 

At last he has time to hear details about the situation with the resistance. The news is not as good as his best estimates.

"So everyone has taken shelter in Borion," Eliot says.

Fen nods. "Borion is the breadbasket of Fillory. It's walled, but many of the refugees are stationed outside its protection, and the army is billeted with townsfolk. They've been generous. They sheltered everyone who came to their gates. But we have double guard duty on the storehouses, and rationing is in effect."

That isn't good. Eliot's no general, but even he knows an army moves on its belly. "How was the harvest, and what does Borion grow besides wheat?"

"Barley just came in; winter wheat should be sowed by now. Row crops are still producing, and the livestock's not due to start on hay just yet."

"So they're sharing the bee's clover?"

Fen nods. "How did you know?"

"I know a thing or two about land management. That's all well done. But is it enough for the winter? Is it enough to supply your warriors when we cross Fillory?"

Fen winces. "No."

Eliot runs down the choices in his mind. Everything is pointing to his first plan: gathering as many bodies as possible and hurling them against castle walls. It's dangerous. It's wasteful. Julia has already objected. But a siege needs to be able to starve the forces inside the walls, and Borion's harvest alone isn't enough.

Unless he gets more information. "Humbledrum."

"Finally," the great brown bear says. "To answer your question, we can infiltrate the castle itself. One rat looks much like another. Songbirds in a murmuration shouldn't attract much attention. I can send the starlings to Castle Whitespire, and gather what you need for a report."

"Right away," Eliot says, and the great bear rises to all fours and ambles deeper into the forest. He'll have the information, but it won't be instant.

"Eliot." 

Quentin pushes into the small circle of advisors gathered around a parchment map of Fillory, marked with bright stone counters and a piece of string marking the border between lands held by the last of the resistance, and those fallen to the Beast's domination. Sir Durstan is tight on his heels. Good.

"Quentin. I see you've met your bodyguard."

"He won't let me out of his sight," Quentin says. "Tell him to back off."

"I can't do that," Eliot says. "Your safety matters above everything. The Beast is trying to kill you."

"He was coming after you, though."

"That's not what Sir Durstan said. It's good that you're here. I need you to see the doctor."

"There's a doctor?"

"A very good one," Eliot says. 

"The centaur?" There's a note of excitement in Quentin's voice, and he turns to the fantastical creature speaking to one of the fairy knights. "They're supposed to be amazing healers."

"We are amazing healers," the centaur says. "I am Hornpipe. And you are…"

The centaur ignores the fairy knight, peering at Quentin. "Come here, Child of Earth. What is inside your chest?"

Quentin sighs and follows Hornpipe to an enclosure. Sir Durstan guards the entrance. Eliot wants to go with them, to hear the report on Quentin's health first-hand, but that's a selfish desire. Right now he needs to hear everything these people have to tell him, so he can solve the problem of how to defeat the Beast.

So he's patient. He listens to Fen speak of foreign mercenaries in Borion from the neighboring nation of Loria--untouched by the Beast, for a moment, but the Beast has claimed every pass through the Northern Barrier, and the company can't get home— 

"But they won't aid the resistance because we can't afford to pay them," Fen says.

"What are they asking?" Eliot asks.

"Their usual fees, which we could probably pay for a month," Fen says. "But they're adding charges for seige management, funeral penalties, danger bonuses--and they want a no-fault desertion clause, which gives them the right to cut and run when they feel the job's too dangerous."

"And the job's too dangerous," Eliot says. "I'll speak to them when we arrive in Borion. I can use their expertise, and they might charge something more reasonable as a consulting fee."

"Mercenaries," one of Fen's people growls. "It's immoral, making a living off force and killing."

"You may object to their occupation if you wish, but we need their skills," Eliot says. "I'm willing to pay them what we can afford to gain that skill, even if it's for a short time."

"You may be able to negotiate more," Fen says. "They hesitate, because their battle-mages have no way to cast magic. If the fairies would—"

"They would have to offer a great deal," Queen Sorrowmoss says. "But they may ask."

"But we need all the mages we can get," Fen says. "If you can help them—"

"I have pledged my assistance to High King Eliot," Queen Sorrowmoss says. "His needs stand above all others. But we shall see."

"--But I was careful!"

Quentin's agitated voice cuts across the camp. Eliot is at the enclosure before he even realizes he's moved. He pushes inside before he can reconsider the use of his time.

Quentin's naked, save for a sheet over his lap. Crystals rest on his trembling body. Eliot's by his side, looking into Quentin's tear-filled eyes, and he knows.

"Your magical regeneration has halted."

Too soon. It was too soon--the healers at Brakebills had forecasted that he would need to rejuvenate for two months. Eliot turns to the centaur doctor. "There must be something we can do."

Hornpipe shakes her head. "The channels are closed. Quentin's capacity for traditional magic is minimal. He can perform minor magics, but larger operations like battle spells or portal magics are beyond his ability. I am sorry. There's nothing I can do."

Quentin sobs. "It's gone. I knew it when I woke up, but I didn't want it to be true--I didn't want—"

Eliot gathers Quentin to his chest. He's lost all but a whisper of his magic. There is nothing he can say that will fix the loss Quentin suffers. All that's left is offering comfort.

Hornpipe clears her throat. "However, he is not powerless."

Eliot holds Quentin close. "You said his magic is minimal."

"I said his capacity for traditional magic is minimal," she corrects. "I am referring to his world-sense, which is entirely unaffected by the loss. I believe it was the anchoring of the portal spell that triggered it, but I won't know without further invasive and painful tests--and I don't recommend them, at any rate."

Quentin buries his face in Eliot's chest, and Eliot strokes his shoulder. Touch stimulates comforting hormones. Touch soothes pain and emotions. "What's the world-sense you're talking about?"

"Quentin and Fillory are deeply connected," Hornpipe says. "It is a profoundly spiritual magic, powered by the love Quentin holds for this land, and the land's acceptance of him."

They shouldn't be talking about him like this, as if Quentin weren't even here, as if he was nothing but a collection of symptoms to be evaluated.

"Quentin," Eliot says. "It's not as bad as it could be."

"So I'm magical, so long as I'm in Fillory," Quentin says. "On Earth, I'm...insignificant."

"But you have magic, still."

"On a world that's nearly conquered by a monster," Quentin says. "Can we fight this? Can we win?"

"Don't treat it too lightly," Hornpipe says. "Fillory needs you."

"She's right," Eliot says. "Fillory needs you. And I need you. You have a power that's beyond what any of us can accomplish--that's it. That's why the Beast wants you dead."

"Because of the world-sense?"

"And the things you can do with it. You're our edge in this war."

Quentin goes still, holding up one hand for quiet. He's listening to something Eliot can't hear, but he waits patiently. He'll wait for Quentin all day. 

"Can you hear me?" he asks.

Birdsong erupts all around them. Outside, people shout in surprise. Quentin throws on a plain looking tunic and opens the curtain, stopping short.

Animals--not talking kin, but the beasts of the forest--gather near the physician's quarters. Quentin watches them, and Eliot sees the wonder in his eyes. Joy blooms on his face. 

He turns around and looks up at Eliot, smiling for the first time in hours. "Okay, then. Self-pity time is over," Quentin scrubs the tears off his face. "What's first?"

Quentin's a storm of emotions right now, but he's putting them aside, facing the truth of what he can do, and how he can use it to help Fillory. This is why Quentin is the most important. This is why, when Eliot's mind is clouded with feelings, the emotions that rise in him when he's near Quentin make the idea of ingesting fairy blood at all times undesirable. He will worry about the clarity of his decisions when the effects wear off--but he will feel that rush of warmth and tenderness for Quentin again.

He kisses Quentin's forehead, because it's what he would normally do.

"The first thing is securing our people," Eliot says. "I need you to screen every one of the Fillorians and make sure they're not possessed. The Beast will know that we've cut off his spies, but the invisibility is worth it."

"Okay," Quentin says. "Then what?"

"Then we have to move," Eliot says. "We have to take shelter where the Beast can't find us, or someplace we can get more aid in the fight against the Beast. I don't know where—"

"If you dare," Hornpipe says, "You might ask the Watcher-Woman?"

"Who's that?" Eliot asks.

"She's the main villain of _The World in the Walls,_ " Quentin says. "If the books are right, she could help us, but it's dangerous."

Hornpipe nods. "I think she may not care for what's happening outside her domain. That could work in your favor."

"And if it doesn't?"

Hornpipe's expression goes sour. "She can be capricious."

Eliot considers the facts. They can't feed a traveling army. They can't pay the stranded mercenaries. Humbledrum might bring good news, but it won't be good enough to make up for those losses. He needs more information. "What does the Watcher-Woman do?"

Quentin answers before Hornpipe can. "She manipulates time."


	19. fifty-four, fifty-five

54\. Deep into the world - cw depression: cognitive symptoms (thought spiraling), use of cognitive behavioral therapy techniques

 

Durstan won't leave Quentin alone for a minute, not even while he'd like a little privacy. He zips up his jeans and steps away from the bushes, rolling his eyes as he catches sight of Durstan.

"Honestly, if you were going to turn your back anyway, you could have let me just have a minute to myself."

"My instructions are explicit, Honored Consort," Durstan says as he turns around, and Quentin fights to hide his wince at the sight of the man’s wasp-stung face. "It's my duty as a knight of the Eye."

"Right." And he can't fight with Eliot about it, because Eliot won't fight. He'll explain, in that disquietingly calm voice, his face blank and expressionless unless he remembers that he should smile. Quentin is important. Quentin is the key in the fight against the Beast. Quentin is their edge in the war Eliot declared against a force that held all but a small corner of Fillory in shadow, and therefore he can't even take a piss in privacy. 

Quentin's the key in the fight against the Beast. How's that work? What's he going to do, bloom flowers at it? 

A towering fir tree's boughs slump in dejection, and Quentin alters course to pat its trunk. "Sorry. That was mean. It's just I don't know what to do, and it's frustrating and—"

He stops himself. "I'm talking to a tree."

"Yes, Honored Consort," Durstan says. "But the tree understands you, so that's quite all right."

The tree's boughs spread out, and Quentin's mind fills with the sensation of roots sinking deep into the dirt. It feels so strong, so unshakable and peaceful that the hollow feeling yawning inside him ever since Hornpipe told him his magic was gone shrinks a little.

It feels a bit silly, but Quentin pats the tree again. "Thanks."

He turns back to Durstan. If he's going to be followed by guards, he may as well make them part of his team. "Okay. So make this easy for me. Do you know which of your fellow Fillorians are possessed?"

"I'm sorry, Honored Consort."

Okay. That has to stop. "How about you call me Quentin?"

"Oh, I couldn't," Durstan protests. "It lacks the proper respect to you and to the High King."

"All right. Okay. You don't know. So we're going to wander around, I guess, and hope we encounter everyone?"

"If there are others who are possessed, they're probably going to want to avoid you," Durstan says.

Kady still waits exactly where he left her, gazing at the Fillorians setting up camp with a blank expression that matches Eliot's. When Quentin walks up to her side, she turns her head and looks at him for a full two seconds before she remembers to smile.

The back of Quentin's neck crawls. "Okay. So I don't know how to do this."

"Is there a list of people we can consult?" Kady asks. "We can check them off as we go."

Quentin's digging in his book bag the second Kady says 'list.' He produces a black hardbound notebook and the pen Eliot gave him. "Tell us the names of everyone who came with Speaker Fen."

Durstan counts them on his fingers as he names them. Quentin writes down the names of over a dozen men at arms and looks up. 

"What about officers?"

Durstan grabs the floppy cloth tam perched on his head, revealing a balding pate. "Oh, I don't think—"

"Speaker…Fen," Quentin says as he writes down her name. "We're checking every Fillorian. No exceptions."

"How are we going to screen everyone in Borion?" Kady asks. "Can you teach us the spell?"

"I dunno. But you'd have to dose up on fairy blood again to use it."

"That's irrelevant," Kady says. "And to be truthful, the effects are beneficial—"

Not this again. "I know. Eliot told me," Quentin says. "Durstan. I need those names."

Durstan wrings his hat as he names Fen's two officers. Quentin motions for Durstan to guide them to the first Fillorian they see, one of the women clad in a gambeson topped by a cuirass and armed with a bow. She looks up from her task—chopping some deadfall into useable lengths—and scrambles to her feet.

"Honored Consort," she says, and Quentin stops himself from huffing. "How may I serve?"

"Take my hand," Quentin says. "You're Edwina Carter?"

She wipes her palms on her thighs. "Yes. I'm sorry, but my hands are filthy, I—"

Quentin reaches to touch her forehead. She swerves out of reach. Durstan lunges for her, and she kicks out in defense, but Durstan hauls her close enough for Quentin to touch.

Shadowy wings lurk inside her. Quentin calms himself, allowing the world under his feet to rise through him and purge the darkness clinging to her heart. She doubles over and chokes up a mind moth, and Kady tuts an immolation spell.

The moth's dying scream gets the attention of everyone in the clearing. Fen watches as Durstan swings Edwina around and holds her so all anyone can see are her shaking shoulders. 

"It wasn't your fault," Durstan says. "You couldn't do anything but watch yourself do those things. But you're free now, and you can make amends for everything you did. Shh."

Quentin watches as Durstan steers Edwina to Eliot, who borrows a sword from Fen's advisor to knight the newly released armswoman into the order of the Eye—

"Guard Quentin Coldwater with your life," Eliot says, and that's just fucking great. Now he has _two_ of them calling him Honored Consort and following on his heels, that's—

Eliot hands the sword back to Fen's advisor, who backs away from the clump of leaders hearing reports from the other Fillorians, glancing over his shoulder at Quentin as he makes a break for it.

"Him. He's possessed." Quentin refers to the sheet. "Bayler Wallish."

"Stop him!" Durstan yells, and Bayler breaks into a full out-run, half the camp chasing after him. He's already pelting into the cover of the trees and Quentin's heart lurches. They have to catch him. They have to stop him, or—

Kady tuts.

"No!" Quentin cries. 

Bayler crumples to the ground as if his puppet strings were cut. Quentin runs for him, but a moth crawls out of the fallen retainer's mouth.

"Kady!"

"He was going to get away."

"I could have stopped him. You didn't have to—"

"As a trusted member of Fen's inner circle, he could have done incredible damage to the Resistance," Kady says. "That outweighed all considerations."

"I could have stopped him," Quentin repeats. "I could have purged the moth and saved his life! Why the fuck do you both go straight to execution when you're fucking high on fairy juice?"

"He had to be stopped," Kady says. "I stopped him."

"Jesus." Quentin stops at Bayler's feet, gazes into his staring, empty eyes. He whirls on Kady, fury heating his scalp. "We don't have a million people on our side, in case you didn't notice. No more killing, Kady. It's not okay. It's not—"

"I understand," Kady says. She pats Quentin's shoulder. "Killing upsets you."

"It should upset _you,_ " Quentin shouts, and then shakes his head. He can't take any more fairy-blood fueled psychopathy, not right now. "Fuck it. I'm going for a walk, I can't—"

He marches away from the camp, away from Kady, away from the dead. Durstan and Edwina follow, but he really doesn't care. It's too much and he needs to get away.

Birdsong pours out of the canopy of yellowing leaves above his head. A fox trots up to him and follows along, tongue lolling. Quentin breathes in the fresh green smell of the forest, finds a space between three white-barked birches, and sits down.

"Honored Consort—"

Quentin holds up one hand, asking for silence. "I'm sorry. I don't want to talk right now." 

The fox headbutts him, and Quentin scratches her head. The little beast curls up next to his knee, content to leave Quentin to his thoughts. Clear-winged butterflies loop and bumble through the air. A gentle breeze plays with the turning leaves. Quentin leans against the birch tree and lets it hit him.

He's not really a magician any more. He can feel his magical energy, and he remembers how he used to feel compared to the near-empty glass he is now. When he gets back to Earth, he probably won't be able to do much more than cantrips and little tricks. They probably won't want him at Brakebills--and if he stays, how will he be able to stand being so much less than all the others? 

Brakebills won't let him stay. Not even out of pity. His friends won't know if they should talk about magic around him, and it'll get weird, and they'll drift away rather than face the hard conversations. 

Beside him, the fox stirs and anxiously licks Quentin's hand. Around him, plants and boughs droop, infected by Quentin's grief.

"Sorry," he whispers. "It's not that you're not awesome. But it still hurts, you know? Even though I'm in Fillory."

No, think about that for a minute. He's in _Fillory._ And yeah, things are shit right now but he used to dream of being here. Dreaming of being here got him through the worst of the darkness, his lowest moods. Thinking of Fillory was how he stopped himself from thinking about--not about death, but of how he could vanish from the world with hardly a ripple, and only a handful of people would even notice. 

Stop thought. That's twisted thinking. It's the brainweasels whispering lies. People would notice. They would hurt. Quentin knows they would, and that's not the point.

Fillory is real. Maybe it's not going the way he imagined because he's not High King, but he's something else again—something special to this place, and Fillory needs him. 

Yeah, Fillory needs him, but can he do what Fillory needs? Quentin imagines the map Fen had showed them. Most of Fillory is already conquered. They have one town, seven thousand men, and the help of the free fairies—though so far their help has been shit-tastic—the talking kin, and him.

Is it enough? Is _he_ enough? What if he can't do it? What if this land-sense wasn't enough to save Fillory?

The birch tree behind him sways. Quentin feels that same sensation of roots sinking deep in the dirt. He puts his hands on the forest floor, a smudged white mushroom nestled between his fingers, and tries to sink into it. 

He touches the mycelium first, and the whole troop quivers at his touch. His awareness spreads across the forest floor, a complex network of mushrooms spreading across miles of forest, all of it connected. The land teems with life, from the slow, peaceful trees to the scurrying haste of ants, and Quentin doesn't know how he would explain it to anyone. He's the forest. He's the land. He's the moss growing on the trees, he's every bird in the sky—and here, and here, and here are cold, rotting shadows that don't belong—

He pulls them out the way a gardener would dispose of weeds. They have no place here. Off in the distance, he can hear mind-moths screaming as they die, then the fumbling panic as people regain control of their bodies after weeks, months, years of possession.

Quentin spreads himself across the land, and the land welcomes him. Forest gives way to field and river, but the river is thick with impurities, and the far side of the bank is mouldering darkness, leeching the life from everything it touches.

That's the Beast. That's the Shadow. That's what good magic turned on itself becomes. It's almost covered the whole land; that river is only a few hours walk from this forest. Quentin follows the river's current, and it's polluted as far as he can see. It's going to swallow Fillory whole if no one stops it—

Quentin will stop it. It doesn't matter how hard it is. He'll save Fillory. Whatever it takes.

He roots into the land and power seeps into him. He draws it all in, wondering and awed, and then fills the river with it, cleansing the water with his power. It's surprisingly natural--he decides what he wants, and casting the magic is instinctive, an extension of his desires.

The darkness retreats. The land on the far bank perks up, recovering.

"Quentin! Quentin!"

People shout his name. Sir Durstan and Sir Edwina shout in response, and soon Eliot—Quentin knows it's him by the way his stride touches the land—Eliot rushes to his side. The fox, disgruntled, gets to her feet and ambles away.

"Quentin," Eliot says. "No one knew where you were. You can't do that. You can't just wander off. You're too important. You can't—"

Quentin reaches up and pulls Eliot into a hug. "It's okay."

Eliot clings to his shoulders. "You're too important."

"I'm here." Quentin strokes Eliot's hair and kisses his temple. "It's okay. I'm sorry I scared you. I'm here."

 

55\. The weight of a crown

 

Eliot’s irritated, and only Quentin is happy about it. The High King is trying very hard to listen to all the reports, and he asks after Humbledrum, but the bear shakes his great head and tells Eliot to be patient.

“The Beast isn’t going to sit still. We wait for the flight of songbirds, but the Beast knows we’ve routed his forces already. I need information. How long must we wait?” 

“The birds must fly hundreds of miles,” Humbledrum says, “both to and from Castle Whitespire. It will take—“

“As long as it takes,” Eliot says. He bites on a hangnail and makes a face. “Quentin. Are you certain all the moths have been purged?”

“I checked everyone, one by one. We’re free of mind-moths.”

Everyone was free—and many of the Fillorians had fashioned cloth half-masks that covered their mouth and nose, hoping that barrier would be enough to protect them from further possession. Every one of the knights of the Eye wore them, and he’d lasted exactly five minutes with four of them following him around before he suggested they guard him in shifts. That got them out from underfoot, and only Sir Edwina and Sir Clementine dog his footsteps now. 

“What else is going to go wrong today?” Eliot mutters to himself. “Food spoilage? Wood ticks? Rain?”

How do you tell a High King that it's naptime now? Fen’s wearing her best diplomatic face, and Queen Sorrowmoss found something else to do several minutes ago. Quentin touches Eliot’s arm. “El. I’m tired.”

He snaps to attention, concern on his face. “Oh. You need rest. The pavilion is pitched. Go and—“

_Almost_. Quentin looks into Eliot’s eyes. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“Yes. You need comfort. I can spare a few minutes to see you to sleep—“

“You should sleep too.”

“I can’t yet. There are still decisions to be made. I just need more information.”

“The birds won’t be back for hours,” Quentin says. “Come with me. Please.”

Eliot wavers, but nods. “I should sleep while I can.”

Fen mouths ‘thank you’ at Quentin once Eliot turns his back.

The pavilion is shady and comfortable, and Quentin has no idea where the bed came from - it’s wide enough for him and Eliot, stuffed with wool batting and topped by a featherbed. Quentin strips out of his clothes and climbs inside, resting under linen sheets and a hand-stitched quilt.

Eliot drops his clothes all over the carpet and stands beside the bed, tilting his head left and right, trying to get the kinks out of it. He hugs himself around the middle, his shoulders high and head down.

Quentin sits up. "What's wrong?"

Eliot shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “I think it’s fading.”

“The fairy blood?”

“Yes. I’m running out of time to make decisions. I—“

“Don’t have to do anything but sleep.”

“And comfort you,” Eliot lifts a corner of the bedding and slides into bed. “Do you want me to hold you?”

“Yes.”

They slide closer, tangling up their arms and legs to cuddle close. Quentin rests his chin on Eliot's shoulder, one hand resting on his hip.

Eliot strokes Quentin’s back. “This feels good. You were right.”

“Good. Close your eyes,” Quentin says. He needs to sleep. But he needs Eliot to sleep--if he can sleep through the inevitable fairy blood crash, it'll help some of it. "There's nothing you need to do right now."

"I need to comfort you," Eliot says. "You need to feel better."

"Hold me. Just like that." Quentin strokes his skin, feeling the tremors just under his fingers. "That's good."

“Q. I’ve learned everything I can from the others. The news isn’t good.” Eliot pulls him closer, wrapping his arms around Quentin. “I might have made a mistake declaring war on the Beast.”

Eliot won't relax. He's wound up tight, his muscles hard, his movements stiff. He needs a massage, and Quentin doesn't know how to do that. He looks at Eliot's face, keeping his own expression calm. Like nothing is wrong; as if calm were infectious. “What else could you have done?”

“Scooped you up and gone home,” Eliot says. “But I got all caught up in the problem, and even though I was frantic, I was thinking about you. About what you’d do in my place.”

“Well,” Quentin says, and drops a kiss on Eliot’s collarbone. “You were right. It's what I would have done."

If he were brave enough, anyway. Brave the way Eliot is brave.

"I know. Because you love Fillory. If you could save it, you would—"

"You would too," Quentin says. If only he could touch Eliot they way he can touch Fillory. If he could root himself in Eliot's senses, and wash away this tight, anxious feeling that's filling him up after hours of emptiness. If he could fill Eliot with the beautiful, green life of the land, tap him into the peacefulness of the trees…

“But I declared war,” Eliot says. “People are going to die. People have died already."

"Shh. Can you feel what I'm doing?"

Quentin holds his hand over Eliot's heart and thinks of roots, sinking deep into the earth. He thinks of a crown of leaves, basking in the sun, of the calm, steady work of standing, growing.

"What—"

"Can you feel it?"

"It feels good. Clean," Eliot says. "What is it?"

"This is what it feels like to be a tree."

Eliot smiles. "This is your magic. Is it like healing?"

"I don't know. Maybe," Quentin says. "Just feel."

Eliot nods and closes his eyes. "I'm scared, Q. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know how many people I can save."

"As many as you can." 

"I have to siege a castle with seven thousand soldiers. I don't know how to do that. People are going to die because of the decisions I make. That's why I was trying so hard to decide everything--so I could decide who lives and who dies--oh."

Eliot goes tense. “I killed a man. I killed him. Because it was _logical._ ”

He shakes with sobs, and Quentin strokes his hair, holds him close. "It's okay."

"It's not," Eliot says. He squeezes Quentin tight and cries, hoarse, throaty sobs that soak the pillow and Quentin's shoulder. "I killed him and I didn't even _care._ "

“There you are,” Quentin says. “You’re back. And I am so sorry.”

He strokes Eliot's hair away from his forehead and kisses it. "You weren't yourself."

“He’s dead,” Eliot whispers. “I can’t do that again. I can’t take fairy blood again… Q. I was thinking that you all would understand better, once you’d dosed up too. I was trying so hard to make all the decisions while I was dosed; I told Kady to drink fairy blood, and she did—what did she do?”

"Don't worry about that now."

"What did she do?" Eliot's voice rises. "Did she kill someone too?"

"Eliot—"

"She did."

"That's why I left the camp," Quentin says. "I had to get away."

"And now two people are dead because of my choices." Eliot gets out of bed. "Funerals. They must have funerals. I have to tell their families—"

"You have to sleep."

"I'll have nightmares. I'll just see him lying on the ground dead, looking at me, and all I can say to him was that it was expedient."

Eliot gets out of bed and digs through the backpack he brought with him to Fillory looking for clothes. 

"Eliot—"

"No. I'm the King. I'm responsible for these people. I'm supposed to protect them. They have to be able to trust me. Me! Of all people—"

Eliot sits down on the bed. "How did this happen? I shouldn't be King. It should be you."

"First of all." Quentin circles the bed and kneels in front of Eliot, looking up at him. "You are doing a bang-up job as King."

"I murdered that man."

"You made a split-second decision under the influence of a substance that represses your emotional response."

"It turned me into a monster."

"You did what you had to do. He was going to kill Alice. You acted in her defense, because you knew her death would hurt me. That's not the action of a monster. You were without emotions, but you understood that other people had them, and you tried to take care of them, even when you couldn't feel what they were feeling."

Eliot nods. "But I remember how it felt. I was so certain that I was making the right decisions. It was easy. But now I just--I can't take care of all these people, Quentin. Every time I have this kind of responsibility I screw it up—"

"Eliot," Quentin says. "You take care of everybody around you. It's so natural to you that you don't even realize you're doing it."

Eliot stares at him, confusion warring with the anxiety on his face. "I do?"

"You do," Quentin says. "You look out for everyone. Do you know why you're popular?"

"Because I can mix a Cosmo with my eyes closed?"

"Because everyone knows that you're safe," Quentin says. "Because a girl who doesn't even know you can cry on you because her boyfriend dumped her and you've got her standing like Wonder Woman. Because you make them feel how they're special, and strong, and important—"

"But I broke up with you," Eliot says. "I can make a stranger feel special, but you--I hurt you."

"You were afraid."

"I'm afraid now."

"I know," Quentin says, and he covers Eliot's knees with his hands. "But I know you're a good king, Eliot. And you want to give a man a funeral."

"He deserves it. No. He should still be alive. This is the least I can do for him."

"Then he'll have it," Quentin says. He hugs Eliot close and lets him smooth out his breathing, to let the calm of the trees settle inside him. "Let's go do it."


	20. fifty-six, fifty-seven

56\. Put it to a vote

 

"But Your Majesty—"

"Shh." Eliot pierces the soil with the point of the only spade in the camp and waits for Fen to go away.

"Please," Quentin murmurs. "This is what you said you did for funerals. Eliot's not doing it wrong, is he?"

Of course he's not doing it wrong. Eliot's been digging holes since he was strong enough to break ground. He lifts a slice of sod and walks it to the corner he's marked out to reserve them. It would be easier with a mattock, but Eliot's not interested in easy. 

"He shouldn't be doing it at all," Fen whispers. "It's hard work. There are soldiers to—"

"These men are dead as a result of my choices," Eliot says. "I can dig a grave, Fen. Now let me do it."

"Very well, your Majesty," Fen says with a sigh. "What can I do to help?"

"Get all the Children of Earth here," Eliot says. "I need to talk to them."

Fen hesitates, but sighs again and leaves the grove.

Eliot turns back to his task. All the sod has been cut and set aside. Now he drives the point of his spade deeper, cutting up the soil packed for years undisturbed. It's hard work, but the birds are singing overhead, and Quentin's quietly talking to a stag that walked into the clearing and leaned on Quentin until he gave in and scratched its fur. Robins perch on the stag's antlers, singing and landing on the fresh turned earth to feast on worms.

Blisters ache on palms he had worked hard to make smooth and soft—the hands of a man who had never worked a day in his life, save the writer's bump on the side of his left middle finger. His shoulders and his back protest every time he pierces the ground, every time he lifts a block of dirt on his spade—years of bending and working long forgotten.

But he can dig a grave. He's going to dig Tolan's.

Tolan Marchbank was going to be married in a month. He had a small stack of letters in his belongings addressed to his betrothed. Tolan wrote love letters to his sweetheart, brief, heartfelt notes about how he heard her laughter on the wind and how he dreamed of her when he camped for the night. He wrote something to her every morning, folded the paper, and put it away with the others. He had only been parted from her for five days. 

They rest in Eliot's pocket now. Eliot will hand those letters to her. He will tell her what befell her beloved. He had died in war. She's entitled to his pension.

He stands up straight, groaning as his back protests. His hands throb—one blister is broken. Eliot grips the smooth wooden handle and turns up another clod of dirt.

Tolan had been well liked. He was a cheerful man, willing to switch duties, a good listener who always had time for other people's problems—Eliot's chilled by how many secrets moth-possessed Tolan must have learned by being cheerful, agreeable, and a good listener. 

He should still be alive. He should be a knight of the eye, a survivor of horror. Tolan deserved his life. Eliot had taken it from him. 

"Have you dug enough?" Quentin asks, and Eliot shakes his head. He drives the spade into the dirt and levers out another chunk of dirt, and another. There's a clay layer beneath the topsoil. Digging's not going to get any easier.

His hands slide on the spade handle, now wet under his grip. Tolan had been one of Fen's horse-archers, bringing his own trained mount from the farm when he and his sisters fled the blight that ate their crops. They had been in the second wave of refugees to shelter in Borion, and he signed up for Fen's army the moment he stepped through the town gates.

Had he already been possessed by then? 

Eliot will never know how long Tolan had been a prisoner inside his own skin. But what mattered was that Tolan had been innocent. He should have been rescued. He should have been freed.

Eliot drives the spade into the ground and digs until his friends come, tired and neglected. He leans on the handle and regards them all, shivering when Kady, who stood blank and impassive, curves her lips into a ghastly imitation of a smile.

The animals attracted to Quentin's presence sidle away from the newcomers, but they don't leave. The birds fall silent, though, and Eliot misses the sound.

"Good. You're all here," Eliot says. "I'm sorry I abandoned you. We should have talked earlier."

"You had a lot on your plate," Julia says.

Alice nods, touching the smeared violet bruises on her throat. "Are you digging a grave?"

Eliot grips the spade again. "I am."

"Eliot, there's blood all over the handle, let me see." Margo grabs one of his hands and shakes her head. "Your hands are bleeding."

Eliot shrugs. "The blisters broke."

Margo turns on Quentin. "How could you let him do this?"

"Don't," Eliot says. "He understood I needed to do it."

Margo leans into his face. "He understood that you needed to destroy your hands?"

"He understood that Eliot needed to do something for the dead," Penny says. "But I think that's enough, bro."

"There are others who want a turn at preparing the grave," Quentin says. "You did a lot, El. Let's let them do the rest."

"It's not enough." But Eliot doesn't resist when Quentin takes the spade away.

Kady shakes her head. "Why are you doing that?"

"It's the custom for those close to the dead to share in digging the grave."

"But you didn't know him."

"I know," Eliot says. "I'm doing it to make amends for killing him."

Kady blinks. "But it was the right thing to do. He would have killed Alice."

"He was possessed," Eliot says. "I dismissed alternatives. And that's part of why I brought you all here. I've made a decision."

"You made a decision that concerns us?" Margo tilts her head. "Do you make decisions for other people, now?"

"It comes with the job description," Eliot says. "First. If you don't want any part of this, we have to find a way to get you home."

"No," Julia says. "I'm not going home. I'm staying here. Fillory needs help."

"You're here, I'm here," Margo says. "You can't run a kingdom alone. Or fight a war by yourself."

Penny shakes his head. "If I leave, how do you get back?"

Alice touches her throat and swallows. "It's my fault we're here. I have to fix it."

"Re-taking Fillory will be immeasurably harder without us," Kady says. "There are only hedge witches among the Fillorians. You will need us."

"And that's what I need to talk to you about," Eliot says. "After testing it on myself I have decided that we're not using fairy blood."

"What?" Margo says. "No. We have no magic if we don't take the blood."

"The side effects are profoundly negative," Eliot says. "Only two of us have dosed up on fairy blood, and both of us are murderers now."

"I was defending the camp from a threat," Kady says. "You're clouded by emotion. It doesn't help you. It muddies your decisions."

"Let me see." Quentin takes one of Eliot's hands and hisses.

"Two innocent Fillorians are dead because we took fairy blood." Eliot holds out his hand, and Quentin swabs it clean with spring water and a square of linen. "We can't let that happen again."

"But it won't," Alice says. "Quentin purged all the moths in the camp with his abilities. The camp is safe. None of us will have to face that decision."

"Until we get to Borion," Eliot says. "If this many Fillorians were possessed, what are we going to find there?"

"Now you're making less sense," Alice says. "If we're facing a moth army, we need a way to fight back."

"I don't know how many mothlings I can purge in a day," Quentin says. "News will get around, but we have time. We'll come up with something."

"Forget it. There's no way we can save those people without magic," Margo says. "We need fairy blood."

"I don't like it," Penny says. "I didn't get a good look at Eliot while he was tripping, but I would really like to have my girlfriend back."

"I'm right here," Kady says. "I haven't left."

Penny catches her hands in his, holding them up to his lips. "Baby, you don't understand right now. You don't feel anything. And you can't see why that's a problem."

"But everything is so much clearer," Kady says. "I understand more than I did before. You don't know what it's like, but you will. After I've convinced Eliot that ingestion is necessary, we can find someplace to be alone. You haven't had sexual fulfillment today."

Penny flinches. Eliot closes his eyes. It will wear off. It will. But Eliot remembers looking at Quentin and seeing someone _important_ rather than someone he _loved_ , and he can just imagine what would have happened if he had turned that awful smile on Quentin and asked if he needed sexual fulfillment.

"Kady," Eliot says. "You'll understand when it wears off."

"But we have to have magic," Alice says. "We need it. There's only one rifle and I can't shoot it. If we don't have magic, we can't do anything useful for Fillory."

"But you'll have to pay the price for what you do while on fairy blood. You'll come out of this unfeeling void with blood on your hands. You don't want that," Eliot says. "The price is too high."

"You saved my life," Alice says. "I don't think the price was a bargain the other way around, personally."

"I know you want to protect us," Margo says. "But we could wind up in a situation where only magic can save us. I'm not accepting your ban on fairy blood."

"Margo—"

"No." Margo cuts off Eliot's argument with a sideways chop. "I won't drink it unless I need it, but if I need it I better have it—and so should all of you. Not you, Quentin. I know you've got some kind of druid Disney Princess thing going on, but we can't expect you to keep an eye out for all of us."

"This is a bad idea," Penny says, and Kady pulls her hands out of his grasp.

"What if it were me?" Kady asks. "What if the only way you could save my life was if you had fairy blood?"

"Kady—"

"No. You are important. I would take a dose to save you. I expect you to think I'm important. I expect you to value me."

Penny looks defeated. "You're right."

Alice looks around at everyone. "Is there anyone here who wouldn't choose to get their magic back, if it meant saving our lives? I'd do it for you, Margo."

"Right with you, sister," Margo says. "Look. We can carry vials. If we need to dose, everyone look out for that person. But we can't be defenseless, not with some dark lord getting ready to take over the world."

Eliot squeezes his fists, making his blisters hurt. "And when you find you killed someone who doesn't deserve it?"

"Then we dig their grave," Margo says. "But I'm not digging yours, Eliot. You can't make me. So we vote. All in favor of keeping an emergency vial of fairy blood on ourselves?"

Margo's hand goes up. Alice follows. Kady lifts her hand, and after a moment, Penny does too.

Eliot's sick. But he nods. "Fine. We'll each get a vial for emergency purposes."

"Not me," Julia says. 

Margo turns on Julia. "What?"

"I can't," Julia hugs herself and looks away. "It's not just the risk of murdering someone who doesn't deserve it. I just—I can't do it."

"Why?" Kady asks.

Julia shakes her head. "It doesn't feel right."

"She shouldn't have to," Quentin says. "I support her."

"I hope you don't regret it," Alice says. "I hope it turns out okay."

Julia nods. "I can't let myself lose so much control I do something terrible again."

"It's not the same thing," Penny says. "I was mothed too."

"I know," Julia says. "But it's how I feel."

"Fine," Margo says. "We're decided. Eliot. You've dug enough. Let's find the healer."

 

57\. The Unifier

 

Juniper's a very good horse. She's strong and well-trained with a steady temperament. She's patient with Eliot trying to remember how to move with his mount at a spine-bouncing jog. She used to belong to Tolan Marchbank.

Tolan and Bayler are buried in the clearing. The camp is waiting for the High King and his party to return, but it's not just his friends from Brakebills who have come along. He's flanked by Fen and her Fillorian officers on one side, while Queen Sorrowmoss and her free faires ride on his right. Quentin perches astride Humbledrum's back, riding in the lead with a pack of wolves scouting ahead. 

It had all started innocently enough, but then Fen brought her horse to Eliot's side and couldn't look him in the eye as she said, "There's something I didn't tell you."

Eliot listens, riding dead Tolan's horse. He's carrying dead Bayler's sword. And he is trying very hard not to shout at Fen, whose shoulders are bunched high around her ears as she finally tells him what she should have told him right away.

He's trying very, very hard.

"So are you saying we should turn around and go straight to Borion? Why didn't you tell me this earlier?"

"Because we do need help, Your Majesty, and if you can gain the aid of the Watcher-Woman, that alliance could give you some leverage."

"Because right now, I don't have any leverage," Eliot says. "We don't even know what we're going to come back to—"

"We had to investigate the Child of Earth," Fen says. "We had to find out if he was the High King--and we have found our High King. The people will follow you, Your Majesty."

"Why?" Eliot loses his posting rhythm. The bounce clacks his teeth together, catching a corner of his cheek. He winces. "I don't have the money to pay the mercenaries even if all they wanted was a hire. But that's not what they want. They want to own the last corner of Fillory like feudal lords, and then offer it to Loria as a protectorate in exchange for their military efforts. And the High King of Fillory showing up to foul their plans isn't going to brighten their day."

"But you are High King," Fen says. "You have negotiating power I don't."

"But if we come back and they've occupied the town, that power means nothing. You took an honor guard, which was the right idea, but you took your second in command—"

"He was a traitor."

"Bayler was possessed," Eliot says, "And you left everyone in the hands of the Mayor, who's counting every groat of buckwheat and trying to figure out how to make it stretch. Who knows that the Bobcat Company are the best-trained fighters in Fillory, so they're the strongest protectors she can turn to—"

"My second remains in Borion," Queen Sorrowmoss says. "Foxglove will not cede Borion so easily. The aid of the Watcher-Woman is a power you can't leave behind."

"And there are still avenues of negotiation," Fen says. "If the Bobcat Company will bear a message to Loria to ask for an alliance—"

"I'm not saying that's not a good idea," Eliot says. "I'm saying that we'd be asking them for a pretty big favor, since I have nothing to offer them."

"But you do, Your Majesty," Fen says.

"What do I have?"

Fen glances at Humbledrum and his rider. "The King of Loria is unmarried, as is his son. And his daughter...who is the leader of Bobcat Company."

Eliot's stomach flips over. "No."

"Fillory needs allies," Fen says. "The fastest way to cement those alliances are through political marriage—"

"No," Eliot says. "It's out of the question."

"Your Majesty, your kingdom depends on it," Fen says. "I have seven thousand men. A thousand of them are veterans. The rest are doing the best they can with what they have. Loria has a strong army. Strong enough to endure a siege—"

"Fen. Imagine you're married to a man who will never look at you twice. Who will never see you and smile. A man who has given his heart to someone else, and he flaunts that in your face every day. A man who goes to his lover for everything, and to you for nothing. How do you think that would feel? Because I'm not doing that to somebody. It wouldn't be right."

"Kings don't marry for love," Fen says, her tone even. 

"Okay. now imagine you love a man. And he loves you. And you're supposed to smile as he marries someone else. He swears it won't change a thing, and he tries really hard to make that true, but it isn't. It can't ever be. How do you think that would feel? Because I'm not doing that to Quentin." Eliot says, and Quentin twists around on Humbledrum's back, looking at Eliot.

Quentin's doing his best. Trying his hardest. He says it, just like Eliot knew he would. "But if you have to…"

"No." There's nothing to argue about here. Nothing. "I won't marry for convenience. That answer will not change."

Fen sighs. "Fillory might depend on it."

"The High King and the Children of Earth are all magicians," Queen Sorrowmoss says. "They have the potential to upend this struggle simply through the application of their might. A clever spell is worth a hundred archers—"

"And all they have to do to cast that clever spell is drink your blood," Fen says. "To make a pact with tricksters and liars who always get the better end of the bargain. You—"

"The Children of Earth have accepted our assistance," Queen Sorrowmoss says. "Each one of them carries a vial of sufficient potency to last through several spells. They are being circumspect—perhaps overly so—"

Somewhere behind them, Penny and Kady are riding double. Eliot can't hear her any more, but he left Kady weeping and shaken in Penny's arms. He'll take good care of her. "We can only use that power if the need is urgent."

"Breaking the Castle defenses is urgent enough," Queen Sorrowmoss says. "And I hope that you don't have to use magic before that--but I fear that you will need it. My people and I will supply you with the blood you require, and we ask very little in return."

"There. See?" Fen points at the fairy queen. "What did you bargain for the blood?"

"We ask only that you remember the service and sacrifice the free fairies gave for the sake of their adopted home. We ask that you recognize us as citizens and stakeholders. It's no more than what the talking kin have asked for--but we insist on recognition of our existence. That is all."

"Done," Eliot says.

Everyone stares at him. "What?"

"Look, I know I'm supposed to wait until I've fed your people and the talking kin through the meat grinder in this war because I'm supposed to let you believe that you have to do something to earn it. But fuck that. I decree that henceforth the free fairies and the talking kin are citizens of Fillory."

"You can't! We have to confer! There are implications to consider!" Fen is white-faced, her eyebrows an anxious squiggle across her brow. "You haven't even chosen a council—"

"I don't need a council to do what's right," Eliot says. "Sorrowmoss. Humbledrum. This is your nation. You're here. You're already fighting. I'm not doing anything but stating the obvious."

"Stop," Queen Sorrowmoss says, her voice breaking. "Stop, please."

Eliot guides Juniper to a halt. She turns a dainty little circle to face the queen and her retinue. She sits astride her gray horse and all the fairies touch their hearts. 

"We are yours," Queen Sorrowmoss says. "Whatever you need from us for this gift, you shall have it. Blood, bone, and life itself is promised to you until we see victory, or die in the attempt."

Humbledrum and the other talking kin flock to join them, and they bow before Eliot. "We too make this pledge. Yours, until victory or death."

Atop Humbledrum's back, Quentin smiles at Eliot, tears streaming down his face. Eliot feels it sink into his heart and nestle there, warm and soft. "Thank you. I--thank you. It's just--it's the right thing to do. That's all."

"Hail to High King Eliot, the Unifier," Humbledrum says, but even with all the cheering, Quentin's is the only face he sees.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey.
> 
> Me again. Just dropping in to let you know some things.
> 
> First: Whoa! We're halfway there. Enfleurage is a four act story; we're about to start act three, and I look forward to telling the rest of this as fast as I can.
> 
> Second: I need to tell you something now rather than later. I know this now, and spoilers be damned, this is more important--especially for you, dear reader, for you, who came here to read a do-over, a fix-it, a story where everything is gonna be all right:
> 
> In the coming chapters of this story, we're going to have something that looks a lot like a death. It's going to be all kinds of things that I could couch in fancy terms of literary analysis, but that's not important. What's important is that I'm scared it's gonna be a lot. That it's going to hurt more than a breakup spurred by feelings of insecurity and fear, that it's going to turn over some triggery feelings, and I don't want anyone to walk into that unprepared. Yes, even though it's not *really* a death. I don't care. I want you to know.
> 
> i'm not going to give details/spoilers in this space, but if you want to know so you can decide to keep reading or skip the chapter that day or that you really can't read that right now, or ever, you can DM me on discord if we share a server or you can DM me on twitter (I'm @ceeaintherefor1) you can send a chat message on tumblr and I will blab the whole thing. I guess you could use an ask, but i'm worried i'll screw it up and make the answer public.
> 
> But right now I'll tell you the ending:
> 
> Quentin and Eliot live and love each other for the rest of their long, white haired lives.
> 
> Eliot doesn't let Quentin grow a huge beard.
> 
> if you want to drop a note on tumblr I'm at https://ceeainthereforthat.tumblr.com/ask
> 
> \--cee


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